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According to our Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System, 1,653 natural gas delivery companies delivered natural gas to end-use customers in 2023 in the United States. A delivery company is defined as any entity that delivers natural gas directly to end users. Natural gas deliveries by pipeline companies to the electric power sector made up the largest share of deliveries to end-use consumers, accounting for 33% of all natural gas delivered to end-use consumers in 2023.
Pipeline companies generally deliver large volumes of natural gas to high-volume end users, accounting for most of the deliveries to industrial facilities and electric power plants. The electric power sector and industrial sector are the largest and second-largest consuming sectors, respectively. Pipeline companies delivered 75%, or 27.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), of the natural gas used to generate electric power in the United States, and 51%, or 11.9 Bcf/d, of the natural gas used in the industrial sector in 2023.
Conversely, local distribution companies (LDCs) are the primary providers of natural gas to homes and businesses, delivering 94% (20.3 Bcf/d) of end-use natural gas to the residential and commercial sectors. LDCs often operate networks of small pipelines that connect to homes and businesses; however, they are distinct from pipeline companies, which operate wide-diameter, high-pressure pipelines that transport large volumes of natural gas to predominantly industrial and electric facilities. Natural gas distributors operated by municipalities, referred to here as municipals, are the most common type of natural gas distributor in the United States, but they deliver relatively small volumes of end-use natural gas, accounting for only 4% of all end use.
Natural gas consumption to generate U.S. electric power has increased significantly in recent years. Warmer weather has increased the demand for electricity for space cooling in the summer, increasing natural gas use by electricity providers. Low natural gas prices and improving efficiency from combined-cycle plants have also contributed to increased natural gas-fired power generation. As natural gas consumption in the electric power sector has increased, natural gas deliveries via pipeline companies to electric power plants have also increased, rising by 17% (3.9 Bcf/d) since 2018 and accounting for 75% of the total increase in deliveries to the electric power sector between 2018 and 2023. Pipeline companies do not typically sell natural gas to end users, but instead they deliver the natural gas on behalf of the end user in exchange for a transportation fee.
LDCs deliver most of the natural gas consumed in the U.S. residential and commercial sectors. However, nearly half of their deliveries (47%, or 15.2 Bcf/d) go to the industrial and electric power sectors. LDCs are typically regulated by state public utility commissions, which ensure that the LDCs maintain reliability of service and stable prices for customers. LDCs receive natural gas from a pipeline near their service area and then transport it through their own network to end users.
LDCs with interstate pipelines, the least common type of distributor, deliver the most natural gas to end users per facility, at an average of 0.5 Bcf/d per facility. An LDC with interstate pipelines can have a large distribution area that sometimes spans several states and may serve millions of customers in a region.
Municipals typically serve one specific city or town and, as a result, deliver comparatively small volumes of natural gas to end users, averaging less than 3 Bcf/d of deliveries in 2023. Despite delivering relatively small volumes of natural gas, municipals accounted for more than half of all delivery companies, numbering 886 in 2023.
More information on company-level data on natural gas distributors is available in EIA’s Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System.
