Why do Waha gas prices go negative?

curl -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/past_year?by_code=NATURAL_GAS_WAHA&interval=daily"

What does a negative gas price mean?

The seller pays the buyer to take the gas. At −$9.52/MMBtu, a producer handing over 10,000 MMBtu paid $95,200 for someone to remove it.

Why would a producer sell at a loss?

Because the gas is a by-product. Most Permian gas is associated gas from oil wells, and Permian producers plan around the crude price (EIA). A well that produces oil also produces gas, and the gas has to go somewhere. Reuters put the trade-off directly: Permian firms "have been willing to take some losses on gas because they can make up for those with profits from selling oil."

The alternatives are limited. Flaring and venting are regulated by the Texas Railroad Commission and in New Mexico, and EIA noted as early as 2018 that some producers may stop producing oil to avoid producing gas.

The constraint: production grows faster than pipelines

EIA's explanation is one sentence: Permian gas production has grown faster than pipeline takeaway capacity, so Waha trades below other hubs and sometimes below zero. The discount widens when pipelines are constrained and narrows as constraints ease.

Maintenance turns tight into negative

With little spare capacity, any outage pushes Waha lower. September 2025 set a record-low monthly average of −$0.64/MMBtu, with 14 negative days, after force majeure and maintenance events limited takeaway (EIA). In December 2025, Waha rose $3.72 in one week, from −$3.35 to $0.37, when El Paso Natural Gas finished maintenance on its mainlines. NGI tied the April 2026 low to repair and upgrade work on the El Paso system.

A short history of negative Waha prices

• 2019. The first negative prices came in late March, during three force majeures on westbound flows. On 3 April Waha averaged −$5.75/MMBtu, at the time the lowest price ever recorded anywhere in the U.S. (EIA).
• 2024. Below zero on 42% of trading days, with a low of −$6.41 on 29 August. Waha stayed above zero from mid-November, after Matterhorn Express entered service in October (EIA).
• 2025. 30 negative days out of 188 by 1 October, 14 of them in September (EIA).
• 2026. In May, EIA called Waha prices record-low, with monthly averages below zero in eight of the previous nine months. The run lasted a record 90 trading days and ended in mid-June (Reuters); the low was −$9.52 on 15 April (NGI).

Counts differ between data providers, so compare years within one source.

The past twelve months

OilPriceAPI daily series, 2 October 2025 to 30 September 2026: 134 of 245 trading days below zero. The longest run ran from 4 February to 12 June 2026, 90 trading days.

What ended the 2026 run?

Several things in the same month. The Gulf Coast Express expansion added about 0.57 Bcf/d and entered service on 23 June (Kinder Morgan). Hugh Brinson began interstate shipments in June (EIA) and was flowing toward its full 1.5 Bcf/d Phase I by 1 September (Energy Transfer). Spring maintenance wound down and summer demand rose (Reuters). Waha first settled above zero on 15 June, a week before the expansion's stated in-service date, so no single event explains the turn.

What to watch

• Blackcomb, 2.5 Bcf/d, which Targa now expects in the fourth quarter of 2026.
• Pipeline maintenance, behind the September 2025 and April 2026 lows (EIA, NGI).
• The Permian gas-to-oil ratio, nearly 4,200 cubic feet per barrel in 2025, 15% higher than in 2021 (EIA). More gas per barrel means takeaway fills faster.

Using the data

NATURAL_GAS_WAHA returns negative prices as negative numbers, so a count of days below zero is a filter on the price field of the daily history. For the basis, pair it with NATURAL_GAS_USD on shared dates, as described in what is the Waha hub.