Record natural-gas production has kept U.S. benchmark prices for the power-generation fuel relatively low this summer despite all the air conditioning needed during the hottest July on record. New pipelines giving egress to gas that had been stranded in the prolific Permian Basin drilling fields of West Texas and New Mexico have helped.

Spot prices at Louisiana's Henry Hub, where the national price is set, were recently $2.68 per million British thermal units, down about 9% from a year ago. Meanwhile, prices at the Waha trading hub in West Texas have risen from negative territory to about $2. (Negative prices mean that producers had to pay someone to take their gas.)

There are additional Permian pipelines on the drawing board. A group of pipeline operators and producers said this week that they will build the Solitude Pipeline System, two 48-inch diameter gas pipes between the West Texas desert and the Gulf Coast.

It will take a big ramp up in Permian gas production to fill it and all the other pipelines planned in the coming years, according to TPH Research analyst Matt Portillo.

The buildout should bring Permian gas prices in line with those in other parts of the country and lift the value of land there with gassier output, he wrote in a note to clients. But, Portillo added, it could disappoint the data center developers who have eyed the West Texas desert "expecting perennially free Permian gas."