en.Wedoany.com Reported - The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its Short-Term Energy Outlook on August 11, projecting that U.S. natural gas consumption will rise from 91.88 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to 92.03 billion cubic feet per day in 2026, setting a new annual record; it is expected to grow further by about 3% in 2027, reaching 94.79 billion cubic feet per day.
Supply is also growing. The EIA projects that U.S. dry natural gas production will increase from a record 107.64 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to 111.19 billion cubic feet per day in 2026, and rise to 116.04 billion cubic feet per day in 2027. The 2026 production forecast is broadly in line with the July outlook, while the consumption forecast has been slightly revised down from last month's 92.1 billion cubic feet per day.
The industrial sector is one of the drivers of natural gas consumption growth. U.S. industrial natural gas consumption reached 23.6 billion cubic feet per day in 2025, and the EIA expects it to continue setting records in 2026 and 2027. The chemical industry is the largest industrial consumer of natural gas, which is used not only for heating and power generation but also as a feedstock for producing methanol, fertilizers, and hydrogen.
Growing electricity demand will also support gas-fired power generation. In the first half of 2026, U.S. natural gas-fired electricity generation increased by 2% year over year; as new loads such as data centers push up electricity demand, the EIA projects gas-fired generation will grow by 30 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 and by an additional 44 billion kilowatt-hours in 2027. Natural gas is expected to maintain a 40% share of the U.S. electricity generation mix in both 2026 and 2027.
U.S. liquefied natural gas exports are projected to rise from 15.1 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to 17.4 billion cubic feet per day in 2026, reaching 18.6 billion cubic feet per day in 2027. Due to maintenance at the Freeport LNG facility, the EIA has revised its LNG export forecast for the third quarter of 2026 down to 16.5 billion cubic feet per day. U.S. pipeline natural gas exports are expected to increase from 9.5 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to 9.6 billion cubic feet per day in 2026, reaching 10.0 billion cubic feet per day in 2027, with the increase including natural gas supplied to Mexico's Energia Costa Azul LNG project and local gas-fired power plants.
Export facility maintenance has reduced feedstock gas demand along the Gulf Coast, and with domestic production remaining high, U.S. natural gas inventories are expected to reach 3.985 trillion cubic feet by the end of October 2026, an increase of 19 billion cubic feet from the July forecast and 5% above the five-year average for that period, marking the highest pre-winter level since 2016. The EIA expects Henry Hub spot prices to remain below $3 per million British thermal units through November, with an average price of approximately $2.87 in the third quarter of 2026.
