EIA Natural Gas Prices - Wellhead, Citygate and End-Use (Historical)

EIA Natural Gas Prices - Wellhead, Citygate and End-Use (Historical) is the price ladder itself: one table family that follows a thousand cubic feet of natural gas from the wellhead through the border, the pipeline interchange and the citygate down to every burner tip. Where its dnav sibling, EIA Natural Gas Supply, Disposition and Prices by Area, spreads across roughly 45 supply-and-disposition measures back to 1973, this record concentrates on what gas costs at each rung - and how far back each rung has been priced.

The verified annual view lists Wellhead Price; Imports Price split into Price of Imports by Pipeline and Price of LNG Imports; Exports Price split the same way into pipeline and LNG legs; Pipeline and Distribution Use Price; City Gate Price; Residential, Commercial and Industrial Prices, each paired with a percentage-of-total-deliveries companion series; Vehicle Fuel Price; and Electric Power Price - all in Dollars per Thousand Cubic Feet, with notes stating that prices are nominal.

Depth is the differentiator. The display window shows 2020-2025 columns, but per-row history reaches far past them: the US wellhead series runs 1922-2025, most state series run 1967-2023, Oregon and South Dakota start in 1979, Nevada not until 2006, and Missouri terminates at 1997. At roughly 15 measures times 51 areas across monthly and annual frequencies, that is several thousand series with multi-decade histories - the longest official US natural gas price record available anywhere in this catalog. It sits inside the gas utilities data hub, where priced series are rarer than volume counts. Get a sample of this dataset with your states and series before anything else.

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 measures above are the real published series names; the figures shown illustrate row shape rather than quote verified observations - your sample arrives carrying actual values for exactly the states, measures and years you name. Two structural details show up even in placeholder form. First, 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. Second, the same measure renders at both monthly and annual frequency, which means seasonal shape and long-run trend come from one schema instead of two stitched ones.

Seven field groups define the working dictionary, each definition checked against the captured table pages during the August 2026 research pass:

Additional fields on request. Three things sit outside the verified seven and get pinned down against your sample before you commit: the exact discontinuation year and official splicing guidance for the national wellhead series (EIA publishes neither openly), per-state monthly availability for early years (some states lack monthly renditions before certain start dates), and the symbol conventions applied to withheld cells (W marks withheld values alongside the NA not-available marker). Name the states and vintages your models need when requesting a sample - the extract comes back cut to exactly that shape, dictionary attached.

• Geo: United States total plus all fifty states through the area selector; import and export prices publish at national level
• Temporal: US wellhead series 1922-2025; most state series 1967-2023; Oregon and South Dakota from 1979, Nevada from 2006, Missouri ending at 1997; import/export prices from 1989; electric power price from a documented sector change in 2002; every measure carries monthly and annual renditions
• Granularity: one price series per measure per area per frequency, in nominal dollars per thousand cubic feet

That footprint is the niche. Roughly 15 measures across 51 areas is several thousand series, and the century-scale wellhead spine is what no other official source matches: most government energy statistics start after 1970, while this table prices American gas back to before the Great Depression. Coverage quirks are part of the record - state start years genuinely differ because states joined the reporting program at different times, so a balanced panel is built by design, not by accident.

API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.

Pick the measures, pick the states, pick the cadence, pick the landing zone - the same rows arrive whichever way you take them. Monthly and annual frequencies ride along together, so a dashboard can hold both without a second integration. The sample comes first: state list, vintage depth and symbol handling are settled facts before any commitment.

• Long-run inflation and energy-cost research - a nominal price record reaching 1922 supports real-term deflator studies, regime analysis across price-control eras, and century-scale charts no other official series can draw.
• Utility rate and regulatory analysis - citygate versus residential spreads quantify the distribution margin state regulators argue over, sector by sector, state by state.
• Industrial siting and procurement - cross-state industrial and electric power prices rank energy costs for energy-heavy facilities; see the market sizing pattern applied to utility territories.
• Quant backtesting - the longest official US gas price record anchors commodity models and macro overlays; the quant backtesting page shows where century-scale nominal series slot in.
• Citation-grade journalism and academic work - every figure traces to an official statistical agency series with a named measure, area and period.

Personas: journalists academics use cases rate highest - citable official history back to 1922. Data scientists build deflated panels from the nominal spine. Investors and quants use it as the cost-side input to energy regime models. Sales and growth teams compare industrial gas costs across states when pricing energy-intensive accounts. Developers wire the flat schema into pipelines without transformation gymnastics.

Inside the EIA shelf in this slice, the neighbors overlap deliberately. EIA Natural Gas Supply, Disposition and Prices by Area trades depth for breadth - roughly 45 supply-and-disposition measures across more areas back to 1973, against this table's tight price focus reaching 1922. EIA Natural Gas Consumers, Deliveries and Prices by State covers who buys - customer counts and deliveries from Form EIA-176 - not what they paid. EIA Natural Gas Monthly repackages the same statistical system as a publication, useful for narrative context rather than panel building. Outside the agency, IEA Natural Gas Information buys international scope at a national-aggregate grain - the head-to-head comparison scores the two line by line - and Eurostat Natural Gas Supply Statistics does the European equivalent.

Two glossary notes sharpen the vocabulary before you request anything: what a citygate price actually measures, and why the wellhead price national aggregate stops reporting while state detail continues. Start from the best gas utilities datasets ranking to see where this record lands in the slice.