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U.S. gross natural gas withdrawals reached 47.7 trillion cubic feet in 2025, with a small group of states accounting for most of the total. Much of this output comes from prolific shale formations such as the Permian, Marcellus, Haynesville, and Eagle Ford.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows 2025 gross natural gas withdrawals by state and producing area using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with the latest available 2024 figures used for five states.

Gross withdrawals measure total well-stream production before processing, making them different from marketed or dry natural gas output.

Texas Produced Over a Quarter of U.S. Natural Gas

Texas led the country with 13,603 Bcf of gross withdrawals in 2025, equal to 28.5% of the national total. Pennsylvania followed at 7,676 Bcf, or 16.1%, meaning the two states together accounted for nearly 45% of U.S. withdrawals.

Their output is driven by some of North America’s most productive shale formations, including the Permian Basin in Texas and the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

The table below ranks every state and producing area with at least 10 Bcf of gross withdrawals. States below that threshold, which together account for roughly 0.1% of the national total, are not shown:

New Mexico and Louisiana ranked third and fourth, producing 4,151 Bcf and 3,817 Bcf, respectively. Combined with Texas and Pennsylvania, the four states generated 61.3% of U.S. gross natural gas withdrawals in 2025.

Appalachia Forms America’s Second Major Gas Hub

Beyond Texas, the Appalachian Basin has become the country’s other major gas-producing hub.

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio together produced 13,377 Bcf in 2025, equal to 28% of the U.S. total, largely from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

Alaska ranked just behind West Virginia despite having no pipeline connection to the Lower 48, underscoring the scale of its resource base.

This production base helps explain the country’s leading position in global gas markets. See how U.S. dry natural gas production ranks against other major producing countries.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Natural Gas Withdrawals Across U.S. States (2023) on Voronoi.

The nationwide injunction stands; the suspended rule would have required unique barcodes and scanner-ready envelopes...

The Supreme Court late on Sept. 14 declined to lift a nationwide injunction blocking a United States Postal Service (USPS) rule on federal ballot mail, leaving it on hold for the 2026 midterms.

The ruling in USPS v. California took the form of an unsigned order.

"The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court's preliminary injunction," the order said.

"And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion with fellow Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that "there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority" but that applying the proposed rules would be "arbitrary and capricious" for the midterm elections as state and local officials "do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule."

Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

The decision is likely the final say on the rule during this election cycle, with even Talwani saying from the bench earlier this month that it was unclear how the government would implement the plans with November just around the corner.

India’s refineries have been running at an unprecedented 105% to 108% capacity utilization in the past six months as demand for diesel soars and international fuel markets tighten amid the ongoing Middle East crisis, OilPrice reports citing Reuters.

Refinery capacity utilization in the world’s third-largest crude oil importer has been between 105% and 108% since the war began, a senior executive at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) said at the APPEC petroleum conference in Singapore on Wednesday.  

“Most of our refiners are complex, ?can take a wide ?variety of crude from an API range of something like 16 to 45 or 48,” Nandakumar Pillai, a company director at MRPL, said at the event, as carried by Reuters.

MRPL operates a refinery with the capacity to process 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) on the coast of India’s southern state of Karnataka. The refinery has a versatile design with complex secondary processing units and high flexibility to process crudes of various API, delivering a variety of quality products, the refiner says.

MRPL will continue to run its refinery at above 100% until March 2027, Pillai told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

All Indian refiners are currently prioritizing diesel production at the expense of jet fuel amid soaring domestic diesel demand and a crunch in global middle distillate supply.

Diesel prices globally are soaring, and diesel cracks have hit all-time highs as supply remains constrained in the Middle East and Russia, while maximized refinery runs elsewhere cannot offset the supply lost to the U.S.-Iran war and Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian refineries.

The re-escalation in the Middle East and the Russian ban on diesel exports pushed middle distillate cracks to record highs last week.

Analysts have been warning for weeks that diesel and other fuels are the real stress test in the oil markets, not crude oil.  

The last time Minnesota voted Republican for president was Richard Nixon in 1972.

The state hasn’t voted for a Republican senator since 2002, when Norm Coleman won a seat he'd lose six years later to Al Franken. Republicans have talked themselves into believing the state might break their way every cycle since, and Minnesota voters have declined to cooperate every time. Barack Obama carried the state by double digits in 2008. Hillary Clinton won it by less than two points in 2016. In 2024, Kamala Harris only won the state by four points, even with home-state Gov. Tim Walz on the ticket.

Despite the those close races, Democrats expected Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D-Minn.) to cruise into the open seat. She had to fight for it first. Rep. Angie Craig, the more centrist option, lost the August primary to Flanagan's progressive coalition, built with help from Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). 

According to a fresh survey by Quantus Insights, Flanagan leads 48.2 percent, to Michele Tafoya’s 44.4 percent, a lead within the poll’s margin of error. In terms of public opinion, 50 percent rate Flanagan favorably while 46 percent rate her unfavorably, and 42.4 percent rate Tafoya favorably with 42 percent rating her unfavorably.

Other surveys confirm the race has tightened.

 A poll conducted by TIPP Insights for the League of American Workers, surveyed 1,201 likely voters and showed Flanagan leading by only two points, with the independents divided equally between the two candidates at 37% each. 

“Into the home stretch of campaign season, such a tight race in a normally safe Democrat bastion presents a big headache for national party operatives and donors,” writes Steve Cortes, president of the League of American Workers.

“Clearly, they will have to invest heavily to try to convince voters that radical Flanagan belongs in the U.S. Senate.”

According to Cortes, Tafoya is exactly the kind of candidate who can break the Democrats’ winning streak.

“Tafoya represents exactly the kind of candidate that works in this current political and media environment,” he explained.

“A longtime popular sideline football TV reporter, she is known to legions of fans as one of the best, most skilled broadcasters in sports. Tafoya’s superb media skills were honed over decades on camera before truly record-breaking TV audiences.”

 The tightness of these polls is quite remarkable considering the state became ground zero for the administration's expanded immigration enforcement this year. Federal immigration officers fatally shot two American citizens, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, during Operation Metro Surge. The shootings turned the city into a flashpoint. However, a slew of state fraud investigations has embarrassed Democratic officials. Gov. Tim Walz’s approval ratings are also underwater, with 46% disapproving and 42% approving.

Despite the closeness of these polls, prediction markets haven't gotten the memo yet.

Polymarket shows Flanagan's odds of winning above 90%, with Tafoya at under 10%.

Several weeks ago, we explained why most data center developers favor on-site gas power: it boiled down to two main reasons - availability (especially since modular nuclear power for commercial 'behind the meter' use is still in the distant future) and price. Furthermore, a recent BloombergNEF analysis shows the marginal cost of operating an on-site gas plant may be below industrial electricity tariffs, making continued generation from on-site assets the cheaper option in many cases. 

As we discussed in late August, marginal generation costs depend on fuel prices and variable operating expenses. BloombergNEF modeled the marginal cost of operating engines, turbines and fuel cells at a mid-scenario gas price of $3.97 per million British thermal units. Gas engines, such as ones manufactured by Wartsila and INNIO, have the highest marginal cost, at $43.2 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Fuel cells, most prominently procured from Bloom Energy, are the cheapest to continue running, at $21.5/MWh, benefiting from high thermal efficiencies and the lowest variable operational cost.  

It appears that none of this was lost on US data centers, and the result has been an explosion of nat gas use to power the domestic data center industry which in turn is critical to keep the AI bubble afloat. 

Which brings us to another key data point: according to a new outlook from BloombergNEF, data centers in the United States will consume more natural gas than most countries within a decade.

Gas consumption to produce electricity for data centers is expected to grow by 15 billion cubic feet per day in the ten years to 2035, even accounting for many currently planned projects never being built, BloombergNEF said. That’s more gas than is currently consumed by all nations except China, Russia, Iran and the US itself, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. It’s also more than double BloombergNEF’s previous forecast in December of 6.9 billion cubic feet per day.

The report is the latest illustration of how the future of AI is intertwined with the burning of vast amounts of fossil fuels, tying Big Tech’s ambitions to those of the legacy oil and gas industry, and why - as we discussed over the weekend - a Democratic win in the midterm elections will make life for data center developers a socialist hell. 

The abundance and low cost of producing natural gas in the US, combined with gas power plants’ ability to quickly ramp up and down as needed by 24/7 data centers, are a key part of why the fuel is expected to supply 69% of the power needed by new grid-connected data centers in BloombergNEF’s forecast.

The wave of new projects powering the AI boom makes the power sector the second-largest driver of US gas demand in the decade through 2035, just behind the demand growth of new liquefied natural gas export terminals entering service on the US Gulf Coast, according to the outlook. Power-sector gas consumption is expected to increase to 54 billion cubic feet per day by 2035, up by 18 billion cubic feet per day in 2025, while gas demand from LNG exports rises by 21 billion cubic feet per day.

Of course, given the uncertainty of how the AI boom will play out over the next decade, the “error bars” undergirding BloombergNEF’s forecast for data center gas consumption are “fairly large — both to the upside and the downside, frankly,” said Henry Eaton, a gas market analyst at BloombergNEF and the lead author of the report. “Our power demand estimates are definitely not low, but they’re not the highest on the Street.”

That said, the soaring, simultaneous gas needs of AI data centers and LNG export plants pose “a complex challenge for domestic gas producers,” which are currently projected to raise gas output by 35 billion cubic feet per day between 2025 and 2035 but will need to produce an additional 11 billion cubic feet per day to meet forecasted demand, according to the outlook. Failing that, nat gas prices will be the next to surge.

BloombergNEF’s report adds to the growing bullish chorus around US natural gas because of the data center and LNG build-out, alongside fears that some of the highest-quality acreage in major US gas fields could become depleted as operators drill it more aggressively.

Citing those same factors, Wood Mackenzie in July declared “the decade of cheap Henry Hub gas is coming to an end,” referring to the pipeline trading hub in Louisiana that sets the US benchmark for natural gas. The analyst firm projected power-sector gas demand to rise by 17 billion cubic feet per day “by the mid-2030s,” nearly identical to BloombergNEF’s forecast of 18 billion cubic feet per day.

Wood Mackenzie’s outlook was followed by a viral interview with Chronometer Holdings LLC Founder Matthew Smith, who predicted that by the end of the decade, “you’re going to start to see a knife fight to secure natural gas.”

“The biggest losers of this will be US consumer,” Smith said in the video interview which was seen over 1.6 million times on X and was hotly contested by some in the industry.

“I couldn’t disagree more with Matt’s view,” Ben Dell, managing partner of co-founder of investment firm Kimmeridge Energy Management Co., wrote in response to Smith’s dire outlook. While the US gas market will see “considerable demand growth” from LNG and data centers, ample undeveloped acreage within US gas fields help to explain how the gas industry “has consistently met the demand while lowering costs on an inflation adjusted basis.”