In 2022, annual natural gas consumption in China declined by 1%, or 0.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), from 2021, according to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights—the first decline in annual consumption since 1990, according to our International Energy Statistics. Slower economic growth, mainly resulting from widespread lockdowns associated with China’s zero-COVID policies, prompted the drop in natural gas consumption. Government policies also reprioritized energy supply security, including growth in coal production, over emissions targets.

In nominal terms, the average monthly electricity bill for residential customers in the United States increased 13% from 2021 to 2022, rising from $121 a month to $137 a month. After adjusting for inflation–which reached 8% in 2022, a 40-year high–electricity bills increased 5%. Last year had the largest annual increase in average residential electricity spending since we began calculating it in 1984. The increase was driven by a combination of more extreme temperatures, which increased U.S. consumption of electricity for both heating and cooling, and higher fuel costs for power plants, which drove up retail electricity prices.

On average, households in the United States were billed $1.04 per square foot for energy usage across all energy sources in 2020. Those households identifying as energy insecure were billed $0.20 more per square foot than the national average and $0.26 more on average than households that did not experience energy insecurity. Household energy insecurity is the inability to adequately meet basic household energy needs and describes households who face challenges in purchasing the energy they need because of cost. For our Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), energy insecurity is a measure we use to count households that have received a disconnection notice, have reduced or forgone basic necessities to pay energy bills, kept their houses at unsafe temperatures because of energy cost concerns, or been unable to repair heating or cooling equipment because of cost.

The retail price for regular-grade gasoline in the United States on May 22, the Monday before Memorial Day weekend, averaged $3.53 per gallon (gal), 26% (or $1.24/gal) lower than the inflation-adjusted price a year ago. Memorial Day gasoline prices last year were the highest since 2012. The American Automobile Association (AAA) expects 6% more miles traveled this Memorial Day weekend compared with last year because of lower gasoline prices. Although retail gasoline prices have come down from a year ago, they remain higher than during the period from 2019 through 2021.

In our Issues in Focus: Effects of Liquefied Natural Gas Exports on the U.S. Natural Gas Market supplement to our Annual Energy Outlook 2023 (AEO2023), we find that the volumes of liquefied natural gas exports (LNG) do affect average U.S. natural gas prices. However, the resulting range in natural gas prices in our new cases was narrower than the price range in recent history and the AEO2023 side cases despite a wide variety of U.S. LNG export volumes.