Natural Gas Futures Expire at $2.82, but the Year-Ahead Price Tells the Bigger Story
The November 2026 Henry Hub natural gas futures contract expired on October 28 at $2.82 per MMBtu, according to the American Gas Association. The Wall Street Journal reported the final print at $2.817, up 4.4% on the day. An MMBtu is one million British thermal units, the standard unit for pricing natural gas in the U.S.
A futures contract is a binding agreement to buy or sell a commodity at a set price on a set future date. This one carried the product code NGX26 at CME Group and last traded on October 28, 2026, which was also its settlement date. NYMEX natural gas futures are priced on delivery at the Henry Hub in Louisiana, the benchmark pipeline hub that the Energy Information Administration uses for its futures price series. Expiry means the front-month role passes to the next contract, in this case December. According to PGJ Online, December, which was about to become the front month, fell about 2% to $3.06 per MMBtu on expiry day.
Over the life of the contract, the November price had a rough run. From July 1 to expiration, it fell $0.54 per MMBtu, according to the AGA. The expiry-day bounce, with the front month rising from the low $2.70s to a settlement near $2.82, did little to change that trajectory. Short-dated rallies into expiry are common when positions are being closed or rolled, so they say little about the direction of the curve beyond the front.
On the supply side, LSEG said average Lower 48 dry gas output (gas with the liquids stripped out) slipped to 112.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) so far in October, after record highs of 113.3 Bcf/d in August and September. LSEG also forecast Lower 48 demand, including exports, rising from 106.4 Bcf/d in the current week to 110.3 Bcf/d the following week. Average flows to the nine major U.S. LNG export plants, which chill gas into liquid for shipment overseas, reached 18.3 Bcf/d in October, up from 17.9 Bcf/d in September.
On the storage side, analysts had expected a 68 billion cubic foot injection for the week ended October 23, which would have taken U.S. working gas inventories to 3,712 Bcf. Think of storage as a pantry filled ahead of winter heating season. A build of that size would tell traders whether production gains were outrunning demand.
The more telling number may be the 12-month strip. According to the same PGJ Online report, the 12-month U.S. natural gas futures strip fell to a 26-month low of $2.84 per MMBtu. The strip is the average of futures prices across the next twelve contract months, so the low means the market's collective price for delivery over the coming year is the weakest since 2024.
That is a reading of current pricing, not a forecast. It does mean the expiry price of $2.82 sits almost exactly at the level the market has set for the year ahead, leaving little term premium (the extra price paid for locking in later delivery) in the curve.
For households and businesses, the transmission is slower than the futures screen suggests. Retail bills generally follow wholesale prices with a lag, and utilities hedge much of their winter supply in advance, so a front-month move at expiry rarely feeds directly into a monthly invoice.
For borrowers and savers, the signal is more indirect. Lower gas prices ease inflation pressure in energy-intensive costs at the margin, but the effect is modest compared with the drivers that move broader price indexes.
The tension I find most interesting sits between a supply base running near record levels and LNG feedgas that keeps climbing. Output at 112.1 Bcf/d, against 113.3 Bcf/d at the peak, is a small dip, yet LSEG projects demand to rise by nearly 4 Bcf/d within a week. Whether that gap closes through production or through storage draws will determine whether the curve steepens from its current flat shape.
For now, the expiry print is one point in a contract's life. The forward strip, not the front month, says more about where the market thinks gas is headed.
