The “shale gas revolution” opened up huge resources in the US, and natural gas production jumped as a consequence, but it pushed prices far below the cost of production, for far too long. A disaster for an entire industry. An amazing opportunity for its customers. Since April, the price has jumped 80%, and it’s still far below the cost of production.

Natural gas may be the most mispriced commodity these days. Its price has been below the cost of production for so long that the industry is suffering serious consequences with billions in losses—dollied up as “non-cash accounting charges.” Leveraged players are trying to keep their chin above water by selling assets. And drilling activity is collapsing. But demand for natural gas by power producers has been booming—and it’s killing coal one powerplant at a time.

It’s been tough for natural gas drillers. Prices crashed. Drilling activity collapsed. Producers are writing down their natural gas assets by the billions. And the bloodletting continues. On the other side, power generators have switched from coal to natural gas, pushing their consumption of it to new highs. A trend started two decades ago with a new technology and the usual suspect, Congress. A toxic brew for coal.

Natural gas traded at $3.22 per million Btu at the Henry Hub on Monday, a seven-month high, and a jump of 69% from its April low. Breathtaking when you think that a few months ago, the doom-and-gloomers, who’d been right for a very long time, were predicting chillingly that the price would hit zero by the fall, when storage would be full and excess production would have to be flared. But the pains for the industry are far from over.

Forecasting the price of natural gas is easy. The US Energy Information Agency does it regularly, and like all seasoned forecasters, it produces a slightly wobbly line trending slightly higher or lower. Based on its latest, we expect smooth sailing, with gently rising prices as is appropriate for the relaxing calm that reigns in the natural gas market. Alas, reality is a series of violent ups and down with sporadic and vicious spikes. 

The fiasco playing out in the natural gas industry doesn’t happen often in a free market, and when it does happen, it’s usually short: namely, prices below production costs. In the shakeout, less efficient or poorly capitalized producers get wiped out. Part of capitalism that weeds out weaker elements through sweeps of creative destruction. But in natural gas, the price has been below production costs for years, and the damage is huge.

Dirt cheap natural gas has done wonders for America. Bene-ficiaries are scattered across the country: households with lower heating bills, industrial users, utilities, companies dreaming of building LNG export terminals to benefit from prices that are several times higher in the international markets. Yet it’s tearing up the very industry that is producing it, and capital destruction has reached epic proportions. But the bloody end is near.