US Natural Gas Exports to Mexico by Pipeline

Mexico took 70.1% of the natural gas the United States exported by pipeline in 2025: 2,422,839 million cubic feet, or 2.42 trillion cubic feet and 6.64 billion cubic feet a day, in the EIA export data released October 30, 2026.

That was 3.4% above the 2,342,588 million cubic feet of 2024 (6.40 billion cubic feet a day over that leap year's 366 days) and the highest annual total in EIA's series, which begins in 1973. It is 2.30 times the 2015 volume and 7.3 times the 2010 volume, and Canada took the remaining 29.9% of US pipeline exports. Against all routes, including liquefied natural gas shipped by sea, Mexico was 27.0% of the 8,965,422 million cubic feet exported, and the pipeline volume equals 6.17% of the 39,287,583 million cubic feet of dry gas US wells produced in 2025.

The gas enters at 22 listed crossings in Texas, Arizona and California, and the volume is concentrated. Of these, 21 reported flow in 2025, and the Rio Grande, TX, Brownsville, TX and Presidio, TX crossings together carried 52.5% of the year. Prices differ as much as volumes: EIA's average for Presidio was $0.93 per thousand cubic feet in 2025 against $3.73 at Brownsville, a gap taken up in the Waha hub negative price guide.

Two cautions come with any headline number. EIA's Today in Energy article of October 20, 2025 called May 2025 the highest month on record at 7.5 Bcf/d, but the series released October 30, 2026 gives 7.27 Bcf/d for that month, and the highest month now is August 2026 at 7.71, a preliminary figure. And the share of Mexico's gas that US pipelines supply depends on which consumption series sits underneath it: 67.8% in 2024 on EIA's International Energy Statistics, 74.4% on the consumption figure in EIA's article.

Annual exports since 1973

EIA's annual series for pipeline exports to Mexico opens at 13,999 million cubic feet in 1973, which is the highest of the 1970s values in the series, and then slid to 1,646 in 1983. For most of the next two decades the trade was small: the 1990s ranged from 15,659 MMcf (1990) to 95,973 (1992), and the volume first passed 100,000 million cubic feet in 2000 (105,102). A first surge took it to 397,086 in 2004, followed by a 23.2% fall in 2005 to 304,954 and several flat years that left 2010 at 333,251, 16.1% below 2004.

The growth that built today's trade came after 2010. Volumes rose to 728,513 in 2014, jumped 44.7% to 1,054,271 in 2015 and a further 30.6% to 1,377,305 in 2016, then climbed more slowly to 1,865,329 in 2019. Since 2019 the annual total has risen 29.9% to the 2025 level, with one down year: 2022 came in 3.5% under 2021 (2,078,627 against 2,154,457). EIA's August 15, 2023 article tied that dip to a 14% rise in Mexico's own production that cut pipeline imports from the United States. EIA's International series, which is a different compilation, shows Mexican dry production rising 5.7% from 2021 to 2022 (1,093.0 to 1,155.2 billion cubic feet). The two sources agree on the direction of Mexican output, not on its size.

What sits behind the climb is Mexican demand. Mexico's dry gas consumption rose 52.2% between 2010 and 2024 on EIA's International series, while its own dry production fell 37.6% over the same span, so pipeline imports filled the difference.

How EIA builds and revises the series

EIA defines exports as "Natural Gas deliveries out of the Continental United States and Alaska to foreign countries." For 1999 to the present the numbers come from the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, Natural Gas Imports and Exports reporting. Earlier years come from the Form FPC-14 annual report and, for 1995 to 1998, a quarterly sales report plus EIA estimates. EIA's note on the monthly numbers is explicit about how they change: "Annual and final monthly data are published from the Office of Fossil Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, Natural Gas Imports and Exports, which requires data to be reported each quarter by month for the calendar year." It adds: "Preliminary monthly export data are based on historical data from the Office of Fossil Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, Natural Gas Imports and Exports; informal industry contacts, and information gathered from natural gas industry trade publications."

The practical meaning is that the latest months, and any figure quoted from them, can move when the quarterly reports arrive. The October 2025 article is an example (writer's reading: the 7.5 Bcf/d it gave for May 2025 was probably a preliminary monthly estimate that the later reporting replaced, though neither article says so). Table 2 sets the article's four numbers beside the series as it stands on the November 4, 2026 check. Three of the four agree within rounding, which is useful in itself: the annual figures that people quote, 6.4 Bcf/d for 2024 and the 25% rise from 2019, hold up. The monthly record is the number that did not survive.

Three smaller points on units and rounding matter when the numbers are reused. First, EIA publishes volumes in million cubic feet (MMcf). A billion cubic feet (Bcf) is 1,000 MMcf, a trillion (Tcf) is 1,000,000 MMcf, and a daily rate is the period total divided by its days. 2024 had 366 days, so 2,342,588 MMcf is 6.40 Bcf/d; dividing by 365 would give 6.42 and overstate the daily rate. The gas units guide covers the energy-content side of the same arithmetic. Second, EIA's notes for the point-of-exit table state that "Totals may not equal sum of components due to independent rounding." In this data the pipeline total equals the Canada and Mexico lines to within 1 MMcf in every year from 2020 to 2025 except 2024, where it is 476 MMcf below their sum, and EIA gives no reason. Third, a note on the crossing table reads, in full, "Pipeline exports to Mexico for April 2015 at Clint and Rio Grande City in Texas were estimated".

The tables also stop at the border. They record physical deliveries reported to the Department of Energy at the point of exit, so where the gas is burned, stored or sent on again inside Mexico is outside them, and so is who bought it or on what contract. A figure for the next release should carry its release date: the October 30, 2026 data are followed by a release on November 30, 2026, and the latest months in it can move.

Mexico against Canada and LNG

Pipeline gas to Mexico is the larger of the two overland trades. In 2025 it was 2,422,839 MMcf against 1,033,487 to Canada, 2.34 times as much, and Canada's pipeline volume was only 2.83 Bcf/d. The pipeline total of 3,456,326 MMcf is still smaller than the 5,508,984 MMcf of LNG shipped from US terminals, which was 2.27 times the Mexico volume.

The ranking has not changed, but Mexico's weight in the export total has, and Table 3 shows why. LNG exports grew 131% between 2020 and 2025, while pipeline gas to Mexico grew 22%. Mexico's share of the all-route total therefore fell from 37.7% to 27.0% even as its volume reached a record. Against domestic production the share barely moved, from 5.89% in 2020 to 6.17% in 2025, because US output grew too. Another way to size it: the pipeline volume was 7.23% of the 33,524,523 MMcf the United States consumed in 2025 (this page's division of two EIA lines, not an EIA statistic). For scale only, 2024 exports to Mexico equal 23.3% of Texas's 2024 dry production of 10,054,195 MMcf; the gas comes from many producing areas, and the production by state guide shows where the supply sits.

Mexico also receives a small amount of US gas that does not travel by pipeline. EIA's by-country table lists 10,849 MMcf of LNG shipped to Mexico by vessel in 2025, 0.45% of the pipeline volume, down from 34,408 MMcf in 2020, and no LNG by truck in 2025. The LNG export terminals guide covers the plants that supply the sea-borne trade.

Every border crossing in 2025

EIA reports pipeline exports to Mexico at 22 points of exit, which it names by the town on the US side. 21 of them reported flow in 2025; Otay Mesa, CA last appeared in 2024 with zero. The volume is lopsided. The top three crossings, Rio Grande, TX; Brownsville, TX; and Presidio, TX, carried 52.5% of the year, the top five 68.1%, and the other 17 listed crossings together carried the remaining 31.9%.

Three crossings grew more than fivefold between 2019 and 2025. Brownsville, TX moved 69,321 MMcf in 2019 and 376,069 in 2025, 5.4 times as much. Presidio, TX moved 47,801 and 268,166, and San Elizario, TX 39,517 and 237,247; EIA's series for both starts in 2016. Rio Grande, TX remains the largest crossing with 628,473 MMcf, but that is 5.9% below its 667,956 MMcf of 2019, so the largest crossing has shrunk while the total grew 30%. Nine of the 20 crossings with a value in both years carried less in 2025 than in 2019. The largest falls were Roma, TX (191,529 to 133,780 MMcf); Alamo, TX (73,119 to 17,385 MMcf); and McAllen, TX (78,914 to 30,619 MMcf).

Blank cells need care. A crossing shows "n/a" when EIA has no value for that year, which is not the same as zero. EIA's history ranges start in 2016 for Presidio and San Elizario and in 2017 for Brownsville and Laredo, so their 2015 cells are empty. A crossing's first year in the table need not be the year gas first flowed there (writer's reading: EIA adds a row when a border point begins to report). The crossings are also not tied to named pipelines in EIA's tables, so this page names no pipeline against a crossing.

West Texas, South Texas and the west

EIA's own corridor split is coarser than its crossing table. Its October 2025 article names four corridors, South Texas, West Texas, Arizona and California, and says that "pipeline exports from West and South Texas collectively accounted for 91% of U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico" in 2024. Summing the Texas rows of the crossing table gives 2,122,708 MMcf, 90.6% of 2024, which matches. The same article puts West Texas at 0.6 Bcf/d in 2019 and 1.8 Bcf/d in 2024. Treating Presidio, San Elizario, El Paso and Clint as West Texas, a grouping this page chose because those four are the far-west Texas crossings in the El Paso and Presidio area, gives 0.60 Bcf/d for 2019 and 1.77 for 2024, and 1.23 for 2021 against the 1.2 Bcf/d of EIA's 2022 article. The grouping reproduces EIA's West Texas figures for 2019, 2021 and 2024 to the first decimal. Del Rio and Eagle Pass fall in the South Texas group here by default, as EIA's two-way Texas split offers no other place for them; together they carried 15,889 MMcf in 2025.

The table tells a two-part story. In 2015 South Texas carried 67% of the volume and West Texas 12%; by 2024 the West Texas share had more than doubled to 28% while South Texas still grew in absolute terms, from 1.93 to 4.03 Bcf/d. EIA's August 2022 article attributes the West Texas growth to connecting pipelines placed in service in central and southwestern Mexico, and says gas reaches Northwest, Central and Southwest Mexico from the Permian via the Chihuahua-to-Bajio corridor (including the Samalayuca-Sasabe system) and the Wahalajara system that links the Waha hub to Guadalajara. The same article says exports on the Samalayuca-Sasabe system displaced some Arizona exports in 2022, and Arizona's drop from 0.30 Bcf/d in 2019 to 0.18 in 2024 is consistent with that, though EIA does not attribute the fall. Arizona then rose to 0.24 Bcf/d in 2025.

The 2025 increase of 80,251 MMcf was spread unevenly. South Texas added 48,099 MMcf (60% of the rise), Arizona 23,845 (30%), California 8,782 (11%), and West Texas changed by -478 MMcf, so the corridor that drove the 2019 to 2024 growth was flat in 2025. Whether that reflects a ceiling on the Permian-to-Mexico routes or only a pause is not something EIA's tables answer. For how Permian gas gets to market and why its pipelines matter to price, see the Permian Basin outlook.

What the gas sold for at the border

EIA also publishes an average export price for each crossing, in dollars per thousand cubic feet. Weighting the crossing prices by their volumes reproduces EIA's published average for Mexico to within one cent in every year from 2020 to 2025, so the crossing prices and volumes are consistent with each other. Table 6 groups them.

The table shows a wide price gap inside Texas. West Texas crossings averaged $0.42 in 2024 against $2.43 for the rest of Texas. Presidio, TX averaged $0.30 and San Elizario, TX $0.29 in 2024, while South Texas crossings such as Brownsville, TX ($2.46) and Rio Grande, TX ($2.52) were 8.2 times Presidio's price (Brownsville) and 8.7 times San Elizario's (Rio Grande). In 2025 the West Texas average rose to $1.11 and South Texas to $3.57. The gap was much smaller in the spike years: in 2022 West Texas averaged $5.62 and South Texas $6.32. EIA's tables report the prices and not their cause. The writer's reading is that the West Texas crossings carry gas priced off Waha, where prices fell below zero on many days in 2024, as the Waha guide documents, while South Texas crossings sit nearer the Gulf Coast price. Arizona ($0.98 in 2024) and California ($2.10) fall between.

Volume times price gives an approximate export value. The product for 2024 is $4.24 billion, close to the $4.2 billion that EIA's October 3, 2025 article gives for the trade value of natural gas exported to Mexico that year. The article reports a 31% decline from 2023; the multiplication here shows 28.6% (from $5.94 billion), and EIA does not state its method, so the two should not be forced to match. For 2025 the product is $6.66 billion, up 57.1% from 2024: the average price rose 51.9% to $2.75 while the volume rose 3.4%. The highest of the six years was 2022 at $13.01 billion, when the average price was $6.26 and the volume was lower than in 2021. By group, South Texas accounts for $5.44 billion of the 2025 value and West Texas for $0.71 billion, although West Texas carried 27% of the volume.

Summer peaks and the record months

Exports follow Mexico's electricity demand through the year. EIA's August 15, 2023 article states that "U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico generally peak in the summer due to increased demand for electricity to power air conditioning." The monthly series released on October 30, 2026 shows that pattern in 2024 and 2025, and August is the high point of 2026 so far. In 2024 the lowest month was December at 5.64 Bcf/d and the highest August at 7.12. In 2025 the lowest was March at 6.01 and the highest August at 7.39, a spread of 23% from low to high. June to August 2025 averaged 7.19 Bcf/d, against 6.64 for the year.

The year to date is running ahead of 2025. January to August 2026 totalled 1,674,697 MMcf, or 6.89 Bcf/d, against 1,640,103 MMcf and 6.75 Bcf/d a year earlier, an increase of 2.1%. August alone was 4.3% above August 2025. Whether 2026 finishes above 2025 depends on September to December, which are not yet published; the weekly storage report guide explains the other EIA release that shows how winter demand is absorbed.

Capacity and what limits the flow

EIA's October 2025 article puts the combined capacity of the four border corridors at about 14.8 Bcf/d and the 2024 utilization at about 43%. The calculation checks: 6.40 divided by 14.8 is 43.2%. None of the EIA tables and articles used here gives capacity for an individual border crossing or corridor (the pipeline capacities in Table 10 are for pipelines inside Mexico, which the articles do not map to crossings), so a utilization figure by crossing cannot be built from these sources. The aggregate is the only capacity figure in these sources, and every figure derived from it below holds capacity at 14.8.

EIA says several factors limit exports, and the two it lists are both inside Mexico: "Constraints in Mexico's pipeline infrastructure, including new pipeline construction and permitting delays" and "Limited natural gas storage capacity in Mexico". On the average day of 2025, 8.16 Bcf/d of the 14.8 was unused, and even the preliminary August 2026 peak left about 7.1 Bcf/d. The writer's reading is that the limits therefore sit downstream of the border, in how far the gas can then travel inside Mexico. Table 10 lists the Mexican pipelines that EIA's articles name, with the capacity and status each article gives on its own date. Status words are the articles' words as of those dates, not a current check; the October 2025 article says full service on the Tula-Villa de Reyes and Tuxpan-Tula sections was anticipated in 2025 and the Mayakan expansion expected by 2025, and none of the sources used updates the status of any of them.

The pipelines named in Table 10 explain the shape of the crossing data without tying any one to a crossing. Wahalajara and Samalayuca-Sasabe are the routes EIA connects to West Texas growth. The South Texas corridor, in the October 2025 article, connects from the Agua Dulce hub into northeastern Mexico, and the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline gives that gas access to LNG terminals, power plants and other demand, and links to the Southeast Gateway pipeline that EIA says was designed to supply new power plants on the Yucatan Peninsula. EIA's articles tie the export growth to this build-out inside Mexico.

Mexico's own supply and the import share

EIA's International Energy Statistics carry Mexican dry gas production, imports and consumption in billion cubic feet. The series in the file checked here ends at 2024, so a 2025 import share cannot be built from it. For the years it covers, the shape is clear. Mexican dry production was 1,769.2 Bcf in 2010, 1,069.3 Bcf in 2019 and 1,104.8 Bcf in 2024, which is 37.6% below 2010. Consumption went the other way, from 2,269.2 Bcf in 2010 to 3,453.6 Bcf in 2024, up 52%. The gap was filled by imports, which rose from 540.9 Bcf to 2,365.3 Bcf.

The US share of Mexican consumption on this series rose from 15.7% in 2005 to 38.3% in 2015, 59.2% in 2019 and 67.8% in 2024. Between 2019 and 2024 consumption rose 303.0 Bcf, imports 262.0 Bcf and production 35.5 Bcf, so imports covered 86% of the added demand. In 2024 US pipeline exports were 99.0% of the imports in the International series. The ratio was lower in 2010 (62%) and 2015 (82%): imports other than US pipeline gas were 207.6 Bcf in 2010, 233.7 Bcf in 2015 and 22.7 Bcf in 2024, and the writer's reading is that most of the earlier remainder was LNG, which EIA's tables here do not break out. Two reporting systems are compared here, so a ratio near 99% should be read as "nearly all", not as an exact count.

Why do quoted shares differ? Table 12 sets out the denominators. The October 2025 article gives Mexican total consumption of 7.7 Bcf/d in 2019 and 8.6 Bcf/d in 2024. The International series gives 8.63 and 9.44 Bcf/d for the same years, about 0.9 Bcf/d higher in both. Neither source explains the gap. With the lower denominator the US share is 74.4%, which is this page's division of 6.4 by 8.6 and is not stated in the article; with the higher it is 67.8%. A "share of supply" measure from an earlier EIA article, built on Wood Mackenzie data, read 61% in 2019, 72% in 2021 and 69% in the first seven months of 2022, and the same measure computed here on the International series is 59% for 2019 and 66% for 2021. The share is therefore about two thirds on one basis and about three quarters on the other. This page uses 67.8% as the primary figure for 2024 because the whole calculation sits in a single published series, and gives the other as a stated alternative.

New LNG demand and the outlook

Mexico has begun to export gas as LNG, which creates demand for US pipeline gas that is not Mexican consumption. EIA's international series shows Mexican dry gas exports of 7.5 Bcf in 2024, up from 1.0 Bcf in 2023. The first plant, the floating Fast LNG Altamira unit, shipped its first cargo in August 2024. EIA's article of August 16, 2024 says the vessel can liquefy up to 0.199 Bcf/d and is supplied with US gas through the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline. EIA's article of July 24, 2026 reports the first cargo from phase 1 of Energia Costa Azul on July 8, adding 0.4 Bcf/d of nominal capacity from one train, tripling Mexico's LNG export capacity by EIA's account.

Because the plants run on US-sourced gas, their exports need approval from the Department of Energy, and EIA's articles report the authorized volumes. The October 2025 article says two further LNG projects, a second Altamira floating unit and Energia Costa Azul, were then under construction with a combined 0.6 Bcf/d, "drawing supply from U.S. natural gas imports." The July 2026 article lists Energia Costa Azul phase 1 as complete, so that status has moved on since October 2025; the second Altamira unit's current status is not given in the sources used. Sempra's proposed phase 2 would add 1.6 Bcf/d from two trains. A data caution: EIA's point-of-exit LNG table also lists cargoes that left from Altamira, Tamaulipas for other countries in 2025, while its by-country table shows no LNG re-exports in 2025 and its 2025 total equals pipeline plus LNG plus CNG exactly. This page uses the by-country totals for every share and does not add or subtract the Altamira lines.

For the near-term outlook the usable source is the Short-Term Energy Outlook of October 2026 (Table 5a), which forecasts US pipeline gross exports, Canada and Mexico together, at 9.5 Bcf/d for 2025, 10.0 Bcf/d for 2026 and 10.5 Bcf/d for 2027. The 2025 value agrees with the data here: Canada plus Mexico pipeline exports were 9.47 Bcf/d. STEO gives no Mexico-only forecast in the table checked, so a rise of 0.5 Bcf/d a year in the combined total cannot be assigned to Mexico, although Mexico was 70.1% of the combined volume in 2025. For the prices abroad that LNG exporters receive on the other side of the trade, see the Henry Hub, TTF and JKM comparison.

Sources and check dates

Data and sources, all checked November 4, 2026: EIA, U.S. Natural Gas Exports and Re-Exports by Country (annual, and monthly; release of October 30, 2026, next release November 30, 2026); EIA, U.S. Natural Gas Pipeline Exports by Point of Exit, volumes prices, and the liquefied natural gas point-of-exit table (annual, same release) with the per-crossing history pages under eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/; pipeline exports to Mexico, annual history and monthly history; EIA definitions, sources and notes for exports by point of exit; EIA Natural Gas Annual tables, dry production and total consumption (release of October 30, 2026); EIA Today in Energy: U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico reach new records (October 20, 2025), Lower fuel prices in 2024 resulted in the lowest U.S.-Mexico energy trade value since 2020 (October 3, 2025), U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico set a monthly high in June 2023 (August 15, 2023), U.S. natural gas exports to Mexico are increasing at the West Texas border (August 18, 2022), Initial cargo of liquefied natural gas ships from Mexico (August 16, 2024) and Energia Costa Azul shipped first cargo (July 24, 2026); EIA International Energy Statistics bulk file (modified October 19, 2026; Mexico natural gas series updated January 27, 2026 and ending at 2024); EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026, Table 5a. The 2025 Mexican supply and consumption series are not yet published, Mexican government (SENER) tables are not used, and no state-level 2025 dry production is available, so Texas is compared on 2024.