Natural gas went one way on Thursday and oil went the other.
Henry Hub gas rose 3.3% to $3.33 per million British thermal units, the day's biggest gainer among major commodities. Crude did the opposite. WTI slipped to $69.82 a barrel and Brent to $73.22, leaving both down by roughly a quarter over the past month as the Iran ceasefire bleeds the war premium out of the oil market.
The split is not a one-day fluke. Gas has clawed back about 16% from its mid-May low near $2.87, while crude keeps sliding toward levels last seen before the Strait of Hormuz ever closed.
Exporters are running flat out
The pull is coming from the coast. Flows to US liquefied natural gas terminals averaged about 17.2 billion cubic feet per day in June, near the top of their range, as plants returned from spring maintenance and ran close to capacity.
The numbers behind that are striking. US terminals loaded a record 32 million metric tons of LNG in the first four months of the year, up 28% from the same stretch in 2025, according to ship-tracking data. That was enough to make the United States the source of nearly a fifth of all seaborne LNG.
Much of that volume is plugging a hole left by the war. When the fighting shut Qatar's giant Ras Laffan complex, the world lost close to 7 million tons of Qatari cargoes, and US exporters shipped out roughly the same amount in extra supply. Qatar has only just begun restarting, which means American gas has carried the global market for months.
Europe has been the main buyer, taking around 72% of US LNG so far this year as it heads into the refill season with storage at its lowest since 2018. Venture Global has added to the flow, selling as much as 4 billion cubic feet a day of startup volumes from its Plaquemines plant in Louisiana straight onto the spot market.
Summer heat adds to the demand
Weather is the second leg. Forecasters expect a hotter-than-usual US summer, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration sees power generation running about 3% above last year as air conditioners strain the grid. More cooling means more gas burned to make electricity, right as exporters compete for the same molecules.
The EIA expects Henry Hub to average about $3.34 per MMBtu in the second half of 2026. That is close to where it trades now, a sign the agency views today's price as a floor rather than a spike.
Full storage keeps a lid on it
This is not a runaway rally. A mild spring let utilities pack away gas faster than normal, and stockpiles now sit roughly 6% above the five-year average. That cushion is the main reason prices have not broken higher despite record exports and a warm forecast.
The contrast with the past year tells the story. Gas has swung between $2.60 and $6.95 over the last 12 months. At $3.33 it sits in the lower half of that band even with terminals maxed out.
What to watch
Three things will decide whether gas holds its gains. The pace of Qatar's restart matters most, since every train that comes back eases the call on US cargoes. July weather is the swing factor at home, where a sustained heat wave could pull storage down fast. And the next wave of export capacity, including more trains at Plaquemines and Corpus Christi, will keep testing how much gas the country can ship before domestic buyers feel it.
For now the divergence stands: oil keeps falling on peace while gas grinds higher on demand the ceasefire does nothing to cool.