Pricele #65: Natural gas (100 kWh) in United States 🇺🇸

Gas is the one energy price that still depends on geography, because moving it needs either a pipeline or a liquefaction plant at one end and a regasification terminal at the other. A country at the end of a pipe pays something close to the wellhead price; a country buying cargoes on the spot market pays whatever Asia and Europe are bidding that week. The 2022 European price shock, and the year of bills that followed it, was that distinction becoming visible.

Of the 31 countries priced for natural gas (100 kWh), United States ranks #24 from the top at $4.80, 51% below the median of $9.80.

The United States is the reference point for the Big Mac Index, so its burger price is the baseline every other country is measured against. American fuel is cheap by rich-country standards, since federal and state fuel taxes are a fraction of European levels, while its food prices sit mid-range. It is also the only country here with no VAT at all: sales tax is set by states and municipalities, most states exempt groceries entirely, and the rate genuinely differs between two towns an hour apart. Every other column in this table has a national tax rate that can be quoted; the American one does not, and the figure here is a national average papering over real internal variation.

See the full table for natural gas (100 kWh) in every country or everything priced in United States.