What $3 natural gas actually means for a laundromat, a restaurant and a bakery paying $13 for the same gas
Producers say the U.S. goes into winter with record output and full storage, and wholesale gas sits near $3. But EIA data show commercial customers paid $13.03 per thousand cubic feet in July, up 2% on a year earlier while Henry Hub fell 10%.
The natural gas industry's trade group says the country heads into winter well supplied. The Natural Gas Supply Association's 2026-27 winter outlook projects record dry gas production of 112.5 billion cubic feet a day and storage of 3.88 trillion cubic feet, Fox Business reported on Wednesday. The benchmark Henry Hub spot price was $3.18 per million British thermal units on Tuesday, according to the Energy Information Administration.
That sounds like cheap heat. For a business that buys gas from its utility, it mostly is not, and the reason is in the part of the bill that has nothing to do with Henry Hub.
The number behind the number
EIA's monthly price table runs through July. It tracks gas at three points: the Henry Hub benchmark, the "citygate" where a local utility takes delivery, and the price a commercial customer finally pays.
| July average | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henry Hub spot ($/MMBtu) | $3.20 | $2.89 | -$0.31 (-10%) |
| Citygate ($/Mcf) | $5.20 | $5.43 | +$0.23 |
| Commercial customers ($/Mcf) | $12.77 | $13.03 | +$0.26 (+2%) |
A thousand cubic feet (Mcf) holds roughly one million Btu, so the rows are close to comparable. Two things stand out. First, the gas itself is only about $3 of a $13 commercial price, a little under a quarter. The rest is getting it to the building and the utility's delivery charges. Second, the gap between Henry Hub and the citygate, which is mostly the cost of moving gas across the country plus regional price differences, widened from $2.00 to $2.54. That 54-cent increase more than wiped out the 31-cent fall in the benchmark. It fits the association's own warning: its president, Dena Wiggins, told Fox Business that near-capacity pipelines mean "consumer prices in constrained regions can be impacted."
The same thing works in reverse in a cold snap. Henry Hub averaged $7.72 last January, up $3.59 or 87% from January 2025. The commercial price rose $1.38, or 14%. Cheap wholesale gas does not cut your bill much, and a wholesale spike does not blow it up as much as the headline suggests.
One caveat: EIA's commercial price covers businesses that buy gas from their utility, which was 54% of commercial volume in July. Businesses buying from an independent supplier pay a contract price EIA does not report here.
The laundromat: about $78 a month more, not $93 less
Laundromats run gas dryers and water heaters all year, so they feel the delivery side of the bill more than anyone. Say a store burns 300 Mcf a month, about 3,100 therms. At July's commercial price that is 300 times $13.03, or $3,909. At last July's price it was $3,831. That is $78 a month more. Had the 31-cent drop in Henry Hub flowed straight through, the same store would have saved $93 a month. It did not. CheckThisBiz lists 30,325 independent laundromats and dry cleaners.
The restaurant: a cold January costs about $200 a month, not $850
A restaurant on gas cooks and heats with the same meter. Say it uses 150 Mcf in a winter month. If this January looks like the last one, when the commercial price rose $1.38, that is 150 times $1.38, or $207 more for the month. Compare that with the oil-heated diner in our heating oil piece, facing about $852 a month more this season. Which fuel the building runs on matters more this winter than anything Henry Hub does.
605,380 independent restaurants are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 79,108 in CA, 54,058 in TX, 51,387 in NY. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.
The bakery: the two-year creep is the real cost
Ovens run every morning regardless of the weather, so a bakery's gas bill is about the steady price, not the spike. The commercial price was $11.08 in July 2024 and $13.03 in July 2026, up $1.95, or 18%, in two years, while Henry Hub barely moved. A bakery using 100 Mcf a month pays $195 more a month than two years ago, or $2,340 a year. At, say, $4 a loaf, that is 585 loaves a year just to stand still. CheckThisBiz lists 35,649 independent bakeries.
What to actually do
- Split your bill in two. Find the supply (gas cost) line and the delivery or distribution lines. If most of your cost is delivery, a cheaper Henry Hub will barely show up, and a rate case at your utility matters more to you than any headline about production.
- If a supplier offers a fixed price, compare it with the supply line only. A fixed supply contract does nothing to the delivery charge. Compare it against the gas-cost rate printed on your own bill, not against the $3 you see in the news.
- Budget from last January, not from today's price. Pull your January 2026 bill and use it as this winter's high month. Wiggins said weather remains the biggest variable, and a long cold spell can tighten the market even with record supply.
- Otherwise, do nothing yet. For most gas-heated businesses, the right move this week is none. The risk sits with owners on heating oil and diesel, not gas.
Related: natural gas storage heading into heating season and our natural gas chart.
Sources: Fox Business report on the Natural Gas Supply Association winter outlook; U.S. Energy Information Administration daily and monthly natural gas prices; business counts from CheckThisBiz. Business gas volumes are illustrative, and the cost arithmetic is ours. This is general information, not financial advice.
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