Wholesale natural gas is projected to get cheaper over the next two years, according to the federal government’s newest energy forecast, a shift that eventually touches everything from electricity generation to home heating bills. Released September 9, 2026, and built on data finalized September 3, the federal agency’s outlook forecasts the Henry Hub spot price — the wholesale benchmark set at a pipeline hub in Louisiana — averaging $3.43 per million British thermal units in 2026 and $3.28 in 2027. Those are projections built from a forecasting model, not settled prices, and the agency will publish an updated set of numbers when its next outlook arrives October 6, 2026. For an older reader trying to gauge next winter’s heating bill, the more useful question is how much of that wholesale movement actually reaches a residential meter.
EIA’s September Forecast: $3.43 In 2026, $3.28 In 2027
EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook is a monthly forecast, not a one-time snapshot, and the September 2026 edition marks a mild retreat from where the market sat over the prior year. The agency’s own historical data puts the 2025 Henry Hub average at $3.53 per million Btu, up sharply from $2.19 in 2024; the new outlook has that number easing to $3.43 in 2026 and falling further to $3.28 in 2027. EIA frames both figures as forecasts built on current supply, demand and weather assumptions, and it explicitly notes that this month’s report does not account for market events after September 3, the date its inputs were finalized.
That caveat is not a formality. EIA revises this same natural gas forecast every month, and its next edition, due October 6, 2026, could move the 2027 number in either direction well before the year is over. A projected annual average is also not a single price paid on any given day — actual Henry Hub trades move around that average with the seasons, spiking in cold weather and easing in milder stretches, which is part of why the number belongs in a household’s planning as a directional signal rather than a locked-in figure.
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Storage And Permian-Haynesville Output Are Pulling The Number Down
Behind the softer price forecast is a natural gas market filling storage faster than usual. EIA projects that working natural gas inventories will total 3,969 billion cubic feet on October 31, 2026, the traditional end of the injection season, which would be 5% above the 2021–2025 five-year average and about 1% above where storage stood in October 2025. Inventories are not uniform across the country: the agency’s regional breakdown shows the Mountain region running 21% above its own five-year average heading into the withdrawal season, while gas held in the East is only about even with its average because of a slower start to the injection season and thinner regional production growth.
That storage cushion traces back to production. EIA forecasts total U.S. marketed natural gas output will grow by 4.5 billion cubic feet a day in 2026 and by another 4.6 billion cubic feet a day in 2027, with the Permian and Haynesville regions together accounting for more than 70% of that growth. Permian output is rising partly because wells there are producing more gas relative to oil than in past years, and Haynesville production is expanding on what the agency calls forecast-stable Henry Hub prices, together with the region’s proximity to Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas export terminals. Even with U.S. LNG exports forecast to climb to 18.6 billion cubic feet a day in 2027, up from 15.1 billion in 2025, EIA still expects supply to outrun that added demand enough to leave storage above average.
Henry Hub Is A Wholesale Price; A Heating Bill Is A Retail One
Henry Hub is a trading point, not a delivery point to any household. It represents gas changing hands at a hub in Louisiana before that same gas travels through an interstate pipeline, into a local distribution system, and finally to a residential meter. EIA’s own price tables show how much separates those steps: in the agency’s most recent monthly release, dated August 31, 2026, the national residential price of natural gas came in at $24.09 per thousand cubic feet for June 2026, compared with $5.38 at the citygate — the point where a local utility takes delivery from an interstate pipeline. A thousand cubic feet of pipeline gas holds close to a million British thermal units, so the two figures are a reasonable stand-in for each other even though they are not measured in identical units.
EIA defines the residential price as the total amount an end user pays, inclusive of all tax, delivery, commodity, demand and other charges, not simply the cost of the gas itself. That definition is the reason a wholesale price move rarely shows up in a heating bill on a one-to-one basis: distribution infrastructure, state-regulated delivery rates and local weather account for most of what a residential customer pays, while the underlying commodity is a comparatively small share of the total. A forecast decline of 15 cents per million Btu at Henry Hub between 2026 and 2027 is not the same thing as a matching drop at the meter, and EIA’s own data shows why — the agency discontinued its wellhead price series back in January 2013 precisely because the commodity price alone stopped telling the full story of what consumers pay.
No Winter Fuels Outlook Yet For The Coming Heating Season
EIA typically pairs its autumn energy forecasts with a separate Winter Fuels Outlook that estimates how much more or less U.S. households will spend heating their homes compared with the prior winter, broken out by fuel type and region. As of this September 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook, that dedicated winter report for the 2026–2027 heating season has not been published; the agency has historically issued it in October, around the time of its next monthly outlook, due October 6, 2026. Until that report appears, there is no official agency estimate translating the projected $3.28 wholesale price into a percentage change in winter heating costs for a typical household, and any such percentage circulating before the Winter Fuels Outlook comes out should be treated as unverified.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Financial Wire editorial team.
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David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
