Conflict in the Middle East could have major repercussions for U.S. electricity and natural gas prices. Some states, like Pennsylvania, are particularly vulnerable.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off a global energy crisis in 2022, sending prices for oil and gas skyrocketing in Europe and the U.S. for months on end. Many Americans struggled to keep up with their bills, and disconnections—when utility companies shut off power or heat because of nonpayment—spiked.
Now, energy experts fear the Trump administration’s decision to attack Iran could trigger a similar sequence of events. Qatar has shut down production at the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facility. Liquefying natural gas allows it to be stored and moved over longer distances than pipelines can accommodate. Shipments through a critical trade route, the Strait of Hormuz, have been cut off. Fifteen percent of the global oil supply and 20 percent of global LNG normally pass through this waterway.
In response, oil, gasoline and diesel prices are up, and natural gas prices in Europe are surging. The conflict is “wreaking havoc with global gas and LNG markets, even more so than oil,” according to analysts at Wood Mackenzie, the global energy and natural resources consulting firm. Asian markets “are the most exposed,” but “Europe is also in panic mode,” the analysts said.
The world hasn’t yet seen disruption on the scale of what happened at the start of Russia’s years-long attack on Ukraine, but that’s where we could be headed.
“If this continues for a full week, that’s the kind of trajectory that we might be on,” said Clark Williams-Derry, energy finance analyst for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The longer this conflict lasts, the more likely we are to see higher prices that people are paying for natural gas.”
The Ukraine war, he warned, led to “a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary households, people who are paying utility bills, to the people who are providing them with fossil fuels.”
The immediate fallout from the war with Iran illustrates the problems with ramping up U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas without any policy guardrails, he said. The more LNG that America exports, the more domestic natural gas prices are tied to swings in the global market. “It’s U.S. consumers who are bidding against global consumers for the same gas,” he said.
Since more than 40 percent of American electricity is generated from natural gas, that means electric bills are also affected by these fluctuations. This is especially true in states that rely more on this fuel for power, like Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana.
“Last year, for the first time in history, the eight LNG export terminals consumed more gas than all 74 million households that have natural gas utility service,” said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. Public Citizen calculated that Americans paid $12 billion more for natural gas in the first nine months of 2025 than in the same period in 2024.
[Give thanks to President Trump for robbing us! 
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Electricity rates increased by 5 percent nationwide in 2025, and in some states, the increase was much higher. In Pennsylvania, for example, rates rose almost 9 percent. All told, Pennsylvanians were paying 46 percent more last year compared to 2018.
The more we export LNG, the higher our prices here in Pennsylvania go. This is despite the fact that Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the country and one of the largest exporters of electricity. It’s clear that the oil and gas sector in the U.S. is one of the main beneficiaries of the chaos we’re seeing in global energy markets.
Some LNG facilities are poised to make more money than others; it depends on how their pricing is structured. But for the companies well-positioned to make the most of suddenly rising natural gas prices, it’s a gold rush. I have often described the oil and gas industry’s financial strategy as ‘pray for war. That is how they make money.
