Natural gas prices show no signs of falling any time soon, having soared 150% this year, as inventory continues to dwindle.

The Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Price passed $9.30 per million BTUs (MMBTUs) Thursday, the highest level since 2008. In early January it had been $3.74 per MMBTUs. Meanwhile inventories have been drained, having dropped 17.6% year over year. They are presently down 15.3% from their average for the years 2017-2021.

Kent Bayazitoglu, an energy analyst at the firm Baker & O’Brien, told The Wall Street Journal that due to the nature of its use in electric power generation, “There’s almost no ceiling for natural gas. You can reduce your driving a lot easier than you can reduce your natural-gas consumption. It’s like a roller coaster. You don’t get nervous going down, but going up.”

Historically demand for electricity in summer causes natural gas usage to peak, according to the Energy Information Administration, meaning there will be no reprieve from increased demand over the short term. According to the data, such the peak of such demand occurred in August in 2021, and in July in 2020.

As this is occurring, President Biden struck an  additional deal in March to send an additional 529.72 billion cubic feet of natural gas to the EU throughout 2022, to aid Europeans facing the end of their supplies of natural gas from Russia as the Ukraine conflict strains political relationships all across Europe. That will be an increase in export levels of 15% over 2021 levels, and a 71% increase over 2020 according to EIA numbers.