Historical wellhead gas prices in Excel: the century-long US price record, delivered

One row per price measure per area per period, values in nominal dollars per thousand cubic feet:

price_measure            area            period   value_usd_mcf
Wellhead Price           Texas           1997     2.09
Wellhead Price           Wyoming         2005     5.89
City Gate Price          New York        2021     4.71
Residential Price        California      2023     17.85
Electric Power Price     US total        2019     2.99
Vehicle Fuel Price       US total        2022     8.28

The measure names above are the real published series names; the figures illustrate row shape rather than quote current market levels - the sample you receive carries actual values for exactly the states, measures and years you name.

Two structural details matter even in illustration form. Every end-use sector pairs its price with a companion percentage-of-total-deliveries series, so a price move can be weighted by the volume it applies to instead of averaged naively. And each measure renders at both monthly and annual frequency under one schema, which means seasonal shape and century-scale trend arrive in the same pull rather than as two stitched extracts.

The record is the full burner-tip ladder, not a single price. Alongside Wellhead Price sit: Imports Price, split into Price of Imports by Pipeline and Price of LNG Imports; Exports Price, split the same way; Pipeline and Distribution Use Price; City Gate Price; Residential, Commercial and Industrial Prices, each with its percentage-of-deliveries companion; Vehicle Fuel Price; and Electric Power Price.

Conventions are documented rather than guessed. NA marks a value that is not available; W marks one withheld. Two series breaks are footnoted outright: vehicle-fuel volumes are treated differently from 2010 forward, and electric power sector data changed beginning in 2002 - both reasons a naive concatenation quietly changes meaning halfway through. Notes on the record state plainly that all prices are nominal.

Because every rung lives in the same schema, a citygate-versus-wellhead spread, a residential distribution margin, or a complete wellhead-to-burner-tip chain computes inside one table - no crosswalk files, no unit reconciliation, no guessing which of three similar series names is the right one.

The economics of moving gas. Wellhead price is what the producer receives; citygate price is what a local distribution utility pays where an interstate pipeline hands the gas across. The difference is the wholesale transport-and-marketing wedge, and state-by-state it is the number rate analysts and intervenors argue about.

For vocabulary precision before citing any of it, the glossary entries on citygate price and wellhead price pin down the definitions.

Start with the EIA Natural Gas Prices - Wellhead, Citygate and End-Use (Historical) dataset profile for the full field dictionary and sample rows, and the gas utilities data guide for the whole 16-record slice scored on one rubric. The head-to-head comparison with IEA Natural Gas Information settles state-depth-versus-country-breadth line by line, and the gas-utilities data hub collects every dataset page in the industry.

When you're ready to build, request a sample cut to the measures, states and vintages your models need. It arrives with the field dictionary attached - and the schema in the sample is the schema you ship against.