What is a Natural Gas Marketer?

A natural gas marketer is an entity that buys and sells gas on behalf of its customers. Marketing companies offer a number of different services to its clients, including gas procurement, asset management, pipeline nominating and balancing, and risk management. Marketing companies typically take title to the supply of natural gas, which makes them different from pure brokers, who simply match parties that seek to sell natural gas with those that wish to buy. Some natural gas marketing companies have little to no internally generated supply, while others may be affiliates of production companies that may buy and sell third party gas in addition to their own intrinsic production. In 2020, the top 10 natural gas marketing companies in the U.S., as measured by Form 552 physical volumes reported to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), were BP, Tenaska, Shell, Macquarie, Southern Company, ConocoPhillips, Twin Eagle Resource Management, DTE Energy, Koch Industries, and Mercuria.