US$5 per mmbtu in real terms by 2035. That is where Wood Mackenzie expects Henry Hub natural gas to be heading, against a nominal US$2 to US$4/mmbtu range that held for most of the past decade.
The consultancy published the forecast on July 2 in a Horizons report titled “Defying gravity: why US Henry Hub natural gas prices are set to rise”. Its argument: demand keeps climbing while supply gets harder and costlier to add.
Demand from power and LNG
Power generation is now the main source of new US gas demand. Data centres and AI investment are driving the load growth, which Wood Mackenzie says will require an extra 17 bcfd by the mid-2030s. That is a near-50% increase from 2025 levels, or roughly half the gas demand of the whole existing power sector.
Export projects add to it. Investment decisions on new US LNG capacity hit a record in 2025, and more projects reached a final investment decision in 2026. Capacity is on track to more than double. By the early 2030s the US is forecast to supply more than one-third of global LNG, and demand growth is expected to run into the 2040s.
Gas also backs up intermittent renewables, which makes demand more volatile than before. Henry Hub prices, the report says, will reflect that.
“The conditions that kept Henry Hub between US$2 to US$4/mmbtu for the best part of a decade are no longer all operating at full force,” said Kristy Kramer, Head of LNG Strategy and Market Development at Wood Mackenzie. In her telling, rapid play development, near-zero-cost associated gas and yearly productivity gains created the cheap era, and “those tail winds have largely run their course.”
A tighter supply side
Producers have already drilled their best acreage. As the top portions of the Marcellus, Permian and Haynesville fill out, what remains is less productive and more complex geologically. Breakeven costs have stopped falling, and technology gains in mature plays come in small steps.
Associated gas supplied roughly half of all US supply growth over the past decade, at near-zero marginal cost. Over the next ten years that share is expected to drop below 20%, said Dulles Wang, Director, Americas Gas and LNG Research. “Prices will need to go higher and stay higher to bring new molecules to market, particularly from dedicated gas producers,” he said.
The report treats this as a change in who sets the price. Henry Hub moves from supply-driven to demand-driven, which Wood Mackenzie says alters the risk calculation for upstream operators, LNG developers and anyone negotiating long-term offtake.
Limits of the forecast
Henry Hub is a localised benchmark, shaped by conditions in southern Louisiana, so the forecast does not mean uniform moves across all US gas markets.
The firm calls its call on rising prices contested. Over the past 18 months it has drawn debate from utilities, LNG buyers, upstream operators and financial institutions. The report weighs risks in both directions: non-listed and internationally backed operators speeding up supply, dormant or frontier plays proving viable at scale, and a material slowdown in AI-driven power demand or global LNG trade growth.
Kramer also flagged a concern on the buyer side. “The scale of the US LNG position may look like a commercial advantage,” she said, but with the US past one-third of global supply in the early 2030s, buyers are “already asking questions about over-reliance on a single supply source.”
The full report is available to clients through Wood Mackenzie Lens.
