Natural gas demand is building fast along the Gulf Coast. New LNG export terminals in Texas and Louisiana. New data centers, new industrial facilities and new power generation as far east as Florida. And new gas pipelines and pipeline expansion projects to help deliver the incremental gas that will be required. That’s all baked in. What’s still far from certain is where all the needed gas will come from, and how intense the battle for gas supply will become by the early 2030s. As we discuss in today’s RBN blog, the second in a series, early indications are that it will be a battle royale.
In Part 1, we said that while we’ve blogged about rising demand for gas in the southeastern U.S. and the pipeline projects being planned to deliver more gas to the region, there’s more to the story. That “bigger picture” is that gas consumers in the Southeast — a region that, for our purposes here, includes Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina — increasingly find themselves competing for supply with LNG exporters in Louisiana as well as power generators and other gas consumers north of them in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia.
We noted that gas-demand growth in the southeastern U.S. has been coming on fast and furious over the past few years, constraining the legacy gas pipeline networks there and resulting in the SONAT (Southern Natural Gas), Florida Zone 3 and Transco Zone 4 price trading points being among the very few locations where gas is priced at a premium to Henry Hub for most of the year. And we discussed the pipeline systems that deliver gas to the region (solid lines in Figure 1 below), the new pipelines and expansion projects being planned to increase flows (dashed lines), and the long list of gas-fired power plants being built.
Figure 1. Existing and Planned Natural Gas Pipelines in the Southeast. Source: RBN
Q1 2026 Earnings Calls: Meta Ramps up Spending to Fuel Massive Data Center Buildout
Meta reported total revenue of $56.3 billion for Q1 2026, up about 33% year-over-year from $42.3 billion in Q1 2025.
Join Backstage Pass to Read Full Article
About the song
“The Big Picture” was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and appears as the seventh song on Elton John’s 25th studio album of the same name. The song’s lyrics talk about lasting love and looking at the bigger picture during a time of introspection. Personnel on the record were: Elton John (vocals, acoustic piano), Davey Johnstone, John Jorgenson (guitar), Bob Birch (bass), Charlie Morgan (drums, percussion), and Guy Babylon, Anne Dudley (string arrangements).
The album The Big Picture was recorded between November 1996 and May 1997 at Townhouse Studios and AIR Studios Lyndhurst in London and produced by Chris Thomas. The album, which dropped in September 1997, was dedicated to Gianni Versace, John’s fashion designer friend, who had been murdered shortly before the album’s release. The album went to #9 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Three singles were released from the LP.
Elton John (Reginald Kenneth Dwight) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. He started playing piano at an early age, winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London. His partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin is one of the most successful in history. John released his debut studio album, Empty Sky, in 1969. He has released 31 studio albums, five live albums, ten soundtrack albums, 16 compilation albums, four EPs and 148 singles and has sold more than 300 million records worldwide. He has won two Academy Awards, an Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, six Grammy Awards, a Tony Award, nine ASCAP Awards, three American Music Awards, six BMI Awards, three Brit Awards, and seven Ivor Novello Awards. John also has a CBE and has been knighted, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and has received Kennedy Center Honors and a National Humanities Medal. He performed his last concert before officially retiring in July 2023 in Stockholm. Since then, he has made an appearance singing “Tiny Dancer” at the premiere of the documentary, Elton John: Never Too Late, in New York City in October 2024. He has also appeared on recent singles with Brandi Carlisle, Spinal Tap and Sam Fender.
"About the Song" -- written by Mickey McMahan , RBN Director of Musicology
