The big spenders for natural gas in 2011 were Texans who paid $14.7 billion at the burner tip, Californians who paid $14.4 billion and New Yorkers, who paid $11.2 billion, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) tally, released earlier this month of 2011 state natural gas consumption statistics, which include residential, commercial, industrial, electric power and transportation customers.

For their money the Texans got 3.7 Tcf of gas delivered at an average price of $4.74/MMBtu, with 87% of its load going to large industrial and power customers. Californians got 2.2 Tcf at an average price of $7.08/MMBtu and New Yorkers received 1.2 Tcf at an average price of $9.08/MMBtu. In New York, the more expensive residential and commercial customers made up more than half of the load, and in California the load was nearly evenly divided between large and small customers. Florida, which also received 1.2 Tcf, paid an average of $6.33/MMBtu for its gas (total $7.7 billion), with the lion’s share (1 Tcf) going to electric power users.

Louisiana at $4.58/MMBtu (1.5 Tcf for $5 billion) and Texas at $4.74/MMBtu, both with heavy industrial gas use, were the only states that came in at an average price under $5.00. The average U.S. price paid was $7.03/MMBtu, which added up to $155.2 billion for 24.4 Tcf of natural gas.

The highest prices were paid by consumers in Washington, DC (which has no industrials to bring the average down) at $11.80/MMBtu and Vermont (which doesn’t have many customers) at $11.46/MMBtu. Since the two jurisdictions didn’t use much gas, 33 Bcf and 9 Bcf respectively, they didn’t run up a big bill. Others paying high unit prices were Maryland at $9.98/MMBtu (194 Bcf); Missouri at $9.64/MMBtu ( 272 Bcf); and Massachusetts at $9.05/MMBtu (446 Bcf).

The average price paid by U.S. residential consumers was $10.78/MMBtu for 4.7 Tcf, while commercial customers paid $8.80 for 3.2 Tcf. Industrial customers took the biggest slice, paying $5.98 for 8.2 Tcf, while electric power customers paid less and used less at $4.80 for 7.6 Tcf. Transportation customers (including gas used by pipelines and compressors, and natural gas vehicles) paid $6.65 for 716 Bcf.

Pennsylvania consumers in the heart of the Marcellus Shale paid an average of $8.50/MMBtu for 963 Bcf.

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