European natural gas prices have once again been trading at a huge premium to those in the United States, leaving European households and businesses facing energy costs that remain far higher than those across the Atlantic.
On September 10, the Dutch TTF gas contract, the main wholesale benchmark for continental Europe, was trading above €81 per megawatt-hour (MWh), its highest level since December 2022, according to market data compiled by Trading Economics.
The equivalent US benchmark, Henry Hub, was around $2.80 (€2.41) per million British thermal units (MMBtu). Converted into the same units, that puts the European price at roughly $28 (€24) per MMBtu, or about 10 times the US price.
The exact gap moves from day to day. Market prices in recent weeks have put it at anywhere between eight and 10 times, depending on the trading session.
It is important to note that this is a comparison of wholesale gas prices, not what households actually pay on their energy bills. But the difference at the wholesale level still matters, particularly for European industry.
The reason for the gap is straightforward: The US and European gas markets operate under very different conditions.
The United States produces enormous quantities of shale gas and can move much of it through its domestic pipeline network. Europe, by contrast, produces relatively little of its own gas.
After cutting most Russian pipeline supplies, it has become increasingly dependent on liquefied natural gas (LNG), competing with Asian buyers for supplies on the global market.
That LNG comes with additional costs. Gas has to be liquefied, transported by ship and then turned back into gas at an import terminal before it reaches European pipelines. Those costs are added before any premium caused by tight supply.
European gas prices fell considerably through much of 2025, at times trading between €30 and €50 per MWh. They have risen again in 2026 as disruption and uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz have tightened the global LNG market, while European countries continue to refill storage ahead of winter.
The strait carried around a fifth of global LNG trade before the Iran war. State-owned QatarEnergy has kept force majeure on deliveries to European and Asian buyers since March, with Italian utility Edison saying cancellations would extend into early November.
EU storage sites were around 67 per cent full in early September, below the seasonal average, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data.
For households, the difference is less dramatic than the wholesale figures suggest. A typical Dutch or German household on a variable contract might pay around €1.20 to €1.60 per cubic metre of gas this year once taxes, network charges and VAT are included.
In the Netherlands, the average all-in price reached €1.56 per cubic metre on September 9, according to comparison site Energievergelijker. German households paid an average of 11.93 cents per kilowatt-hour in August, according to the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW).
US households generally pay less, but the difference at the meter is much smaller than the tenfold gap between Henry Hub and TTF. The average US residential price was $19.83 (€17.10) per thousand cubic feet in May, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), equivalent to roughly $0.70 (€0.60) per cubic metre.
Retail prices also vary considerably between European countries, with some governments continuing to regulate tariffs.
The bigger problem is industry.
Companies producing fertiliser, glass, ceramics, steel, paper and chemicals are often exposed directly or indirectly to wholesale gas prices. A European factory buying gas at the equivalent of around $28 per MMBtu is competing with an American producer paying roughly $3 (€2.60) at the hub, before relatively small transportation costs.
That difference has already had real consequences. During the energy crisis in 2022, some European industrial plants temporarily halted production or closed because producing in Europe had become uneconomic.
Petr Cingr, chief executive of AGF Nitrogen, one of Europe’s largest fertiliser producers, has warned the group is considering curtailments at its ammonia plants. He described rising gas prices as “a serious threat to European food security”.
Even when TTF prices fell back towards €30-€50 per MWh, European energy-intensive industries continued to face gas costs several times higher than their US competitors. A report on EU competitiveness by former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, published in September 2024, found that EU companies paid natural gas prices four to five times higher than in the US.
Gas prices can also feed into electricity prices. When a gas-fired power plant is needed to meet demand, its fuel costs can influence the wholesale electricity price for that period. This means expensive gas can hit households and businesses even if they do not use gas directly.
A household that has switched from a gas boiler to a heat pump, for example, may no longer see the impact directly on its gas bill, but can still feel higher energy and network costs through its electricity bill.
Since the loss of most Russian pipeline supplies, Europe has replaced much of that gas with Norwegian pipeline deliveries and LNG from the United States, Qatar and other exporters.
Norway was the EU’s largest supplier in 2025, providing almost a third of its gas imports, while imports from the US rose from 18.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) in 2021 to 75.6 bcm, according to European Commission figures.
The continent has therefore managed to keep the gas flowing, but at a considerable price.
