Market Data

One Benchmark, Many Prices: Why Texas Gas Can Trade Dollars Below Henry Hub

Henry Hub sets the national number, but regional pipeline hubs tell a different story, and the gap can swing from a few cents to more than a dollar.

Henry Hub is the U.S. benchmark, at $3.29/MMBtu as of Jul 6, 2026 per EIA daily spot data, but it is not the price everyone pays. Regional hubs diverge sharply from the Louisiana benchmark based on pipeline capacity: Permian Basin gas at the Waha hub in West Texas has traded more than $3 below Henry Hub, and at times below zero, because takeaway pipelines fill up faster than producers can slow the associated gas that comes up with their oil.

Basis: the price of pipeline space

The difference between a regional hub and Henry Hub is called basis, and it is best understood as the market price of pipeline capacity between the two points. Where gas is plentiful and pipes are full, the Permian's Waha hub is the canonical case, basis goes deeply negative; producers there have periodically paid buyers to take gas rather than shut in oil wells. Where gas is scarce and pipes are constrained, basis turns sharply positive: New England's Algonquin Citygate has spiked several dollars above the benchmark in cold snaps, and SoCal Citygate has done the same during California storage and pipeline outages. Same molecule, same day, very different prices, geography is doing the pricing.

From hub to burner tip

A factory's delivered gas price stacks four layers on the benchmark: the hub-indexed commodity, the regional basis differential, interstate pipeline transport, and the local distribution company's charges. That stack is why the EIA's delivered industrial gas price runs above the spot benchmark even in gas-rich states, and why two plants in the same company can pay materially different rates for identical burners. For procurement, the layers matter because they are negotiated separately: the commodity indexes to the hub, basis can be fixed with a supplier when regional spreads look favorable, and the utility layers respond to tariff class and load profile rather than to markets. A plant that only watches the benchmark is managing one layer of a four-layer bill.

Henry Hub natural gas spot, Jul 6, 2026: $3.29/MMBtu. Archived range: $3.06 (Jun 12, 2026) to $3.34 (Jun 30, 2026). Regional hubs price above or below this benchmark based on pipeline capacity.

Same molecule, same day, very different prices. In the gas market, geography does the pricing.

What basis does to one plant's bill

Take a plant buying 20,000 MMBtu a month on a hub-indexed contract. At the current benchmark, the commodity line runs about $65,800 a month. Every 50 cents of basis and delivery adders layers roughly $10,000 a month on top, which is why a plant in a constrained region can pay a five-figure monthly premium over an identical plant near producing basins, at the same benchmark price. When siting energy-intensive operations or negotiating a multi-site supply deal, the basis map deserves as much attention as the benchmark chart.

Use the natural gas cost per batch calculator with your delivered rate, not the hub price, to see what gas really adds to each production run. Reconcile the bill with the benchmark

Published 2026-07-13.