Natural gas prices in the Permian spent the first half of the year in the red. Then, in mid-June, Kinder Morgan flipped a switch and now Waha prices are back above zero. The “switch” was a compression expansion on Gulf Coast Express, which added a desperately needed 570 MMcf/d of takeaway capacity.

Open The Door – New Pipeline Capacity Unlocks Supply Potential for Permian Natural Gas

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Monday, July 20, 2026. Open the Door. New Pipeline Capacity Unlocks Supply Potential for Permian Natural Gas, published by Lisa Shidler. Natural gas prices in the Permian spent the first half of the year in the red. Between the beginning of the year and mid-June, cash prices in the basin were above zero only 11 days, most of them during an extreme cold snap in January that caused production freeze-offs.

Then, in mid-June, someone, well, Kinder Morgan, to be specific, flipped a switch and now Waha prices are once again in positive territory. The switch was a compression expansion on Gulf Coast Express, or GCX, which added a desperately needed 570 million cubic feet per day of takeaway capacity. As we discuss in today's RBN blog, the pace of Permian production growth and the timing of two greenfield pipelines that will come online later this year will help determine where Waha prices go from here.

When we wrote about the new infrastructure coming to the Permian in February, see Key to the Highway, we said this year would be a tale of two halves. You might want to take a look at Figure 1 in today's blog, which highlights the winter freeze-off spike in Waha cash prices, which was followed by the subsequent slide into negative territory.

Open The Door – New Pipeline Capacity Unlocks Supply Potential for Permian Natural Gas

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

Open The Door – New Pipeline Capacity Unlocks Supply Potential for Permian Natural Gas

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.