Annual natural gas marketed production in the US rose by 4.7% to a record 41.3 trillion cubic feet in 2023, according to EIA data. Natural gas production has surged by 113% since 2006, and by 41% since 2017, as a result of the massive US fracking boom that reshaped the energy landscape and pricing in the US and globally.

• In 2009, the price of US natural gas collapsed amid overproduction from fracking, and no LNG export terminals in the lower 48 states.
• In 2011, the US became the largest natural gas producer in the world, with prices wobbling along collapsed levels.
• In 2016, natural gas became the dominant fuel for power generation in the US, beating coal.
• In 2016, the first LNG export terminal in the lower 48 states came on line, and large-scale LNG exports began.
• In 2023, the share of natural gas rose to another record of 42.7% of total power generated in the US.
• In 2023, the US became the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world for the first time, beating Qatar and Australia.

On February 20, the price of natural gas futures plunged as low as $1.53 per million Btu, coming just within a hair of the lows since the early 1990s. Before 2009, it had largely ranged between $4 and $13. On Friday, the collapsed price of natural gas futures traded at $1.89 per million Btu.

The US has exported natural gas via pipelines to Mexico since the late 1990s, and to a lesser extent to Canada. And the US has long had a small LNG export terminal in Alaska. But large scale exports of LNG to the rest of the world was impossible until the first large scale LNG export terminal on the Gulf Coast began operating in 2016. And as more export terminals were built, the LNG export boom took off, providing more demand for US production, but US production skyrocketed, inundating the US with supply  hence the renewed price collapse.