Two fuels, two stories
Oil and natural gas are often lumped together as "energy prices", but this year they split. West Texas Intermediate crude closed at $107.89 a barrel on October 20, 2026, up 85% from $58.34 a year earlier. It first closed above $100 on March 27 and peaked at $114.58 on April 7 2.
Natural gas at Henry HubHenry HubThe US benchmark price for natural gas, set at a pipeline hub in Louisiana, quoted in dollars per MMBtu (million British thermal units)., the U.S. benchmark, closed at $3.10 per million BTU (MMBtu) on October 20, up 4% from $2.99 a year earlier. Over the past year it averaged $3.55 1. The one big exception was a late-January spike, when it closed at $30.72 on January 23, 2026 before falling back within a week 1.
Why gas is the one miners watch
A Bitcoin miner's main cost is electricity, and in Texas natural gas is the biggest source of it: 43% of generation on the ERCOTERCOTThe Electric Reliability Council of Texas: the operator of most of Texas's power grid and its wholesale electricity market, home to many US Bitcoin miners. grid in the first nine months of 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration 4.
The arithmetic is simple. EIA reports that efficient combined-cycle gas plants burned 7,535 BTU of gas per kWh in 2025, about 7.5 MMBtu per MWhMWhMegawatt-hour, 1,000 kWh: the unit wholesale power is priced in. $76 per MWh is 7.6¢ per kWh, the unit on a household bill. 3. At $3.10 gas, that is about $23 of fuel per MWh, or 2.3¢ per kWh. The average gas plant is a little less efficient (7,781 BTU per kWh in 2025), which still comes to about 2.4¢ 3.
How far gas would have to go
BTChub works out what a mining machine can afford to pay for power from bitcoin's price and the network's difficultydifficultyA protocol setting that adjusts every ~2 weeks to keep blocks arriving about every 10 minutes, rising and falling with hashrate.See it on the site →. At the October 18 close of $82,001.70 and difficulty of 140.58 trillion, one PH/sPH/sPetahashes per second: a quadrillion guesses a second, the unit for a fleet of mining machines. One current machine does about 0.2 PH/s (200 TH/s). of computing power earns about $36.67 a day in new coins. A machine that uses 20 joules per terahash (J/THJ/THJoules per terahash: how much electricity a mining machine burns for each unit of work. Lower is more efficient. New machines are around 15–20; older ones 30 or more.) burns 0.48 MWh per PH/s per day, so it covers its electricity up to about $76 per MWh, or 7.6¢ per kWh 5.
Divide that by the 7.5 heat rate and you get the gas price at which fuel alone would cost as much as the miner can pay: about $10.19 per MMBtu, more than three times today's price 135. In the past year Henry Hub closed above that on 4 of the 247 days with a price, all during the late-January spike: January 23, 26, 27 and 29 1.
What this does not show
Fuel is only part of a power price. Wholesale prices also move with demand, wind and solar output, and grid stress, and a miner's actual bill adds delivery charges and contract terms. Many miners run older, less efficient machines that break evenbreakeven power priceThe most a miner can pay for electricity and still cover it from what its machines earn. Below it, running pays; above it, switching off saves money. Electricity only.See it on the site → at much lower power prices. And the miner's side of the line moves every day with bitcoin's price and every two weeks with difficulty.
Still, the gap is wide. With gas near $3, the fuel behind Texas power costs a fraction of what mining can pay, whatever oil does. BTChub's Monitor shows live grid prices against that line, and the Energy page tracks gas daily.