Natural Gas Prices Higher Than Last Year, Hard To Predict Upcoming Winter

With the first cool mornings of fall, people are starting to fire up their natural gas appliances.

Middle Tennessee Natural Gas Communications Director Cliff Swoape said the price of natural gas seems to be in decline at the moment. But overall, prices are way above the same mark last year.

“Winter use to be one of the main driving factors, because demand increase,” Swoape said. “But with so much of the electricity that consumers use these days produced by burning natural gas, we’ve seen some of that shift over to the summer time as well. So it is a little bit of a flatter carve than what it used to be.”

Swoape said moving forward this winter, it would be almost impossible to predict where natural gas prices are heading. Swoape said the main drivers of prices today are inflation, world conflicts and demand.

“Gas prices right now are like everything,” Swoape said. “They are trending up right now. Inflation has a hold on about everything. We are trying everything we can to mitigate the cost to our costumers.”

Swoape said its customers are protected from major price spikes. Swoape said the company has a purchased natural gas adjustment that averages any significant increase over a 12-month period.