Kansas City (Missouri side) gas capacity: utility plan shows sub-5% margins from 2026-27

By Sam Strong, Vice President of Business Development, Discovery Energy. Technical review by Tara Dugger, Chief Operating Officer. Published November 2, 2026.

Metro used: the Kansas City, MO-KS metropolitan statistical area, as the federal government defined it in Bulletin No. 23-01 (July 21, 2023).²³ The record used is Spire Missouri Inc. (Spire)'s plan for its Missouri West system, which does not cover the Kansas counties or Bates and Caldwell counties.

Key takeaways

Who serves the Kansas City area?

Spire's tariff (sheets R-1 and R-1.1) names Jackson, Clay, Platte, Cass, Clinton, Lafayette and Ray counties in Missouri.⁶ It does not name Bates or Caldwell county.⁷ Our county lists, built from federal EIA-176 gas reports, tie other gas utilities to some counties, including Spire Missouri in Clay, Clinton and Bates counties and Atmos Energy in Johnson County, Kansas. Those reports show where a utility reports operations, not where its tariff applies, and for the other counties no utility record was read.²¹ Spire does not publish figures for the Kansas City area alone, so the figures on this page cover its whole Missouri West system. That system also serves customers in about two dozen other counties outside the metro, and they cannot be separated out.⁸

Has Kansas City had gas supply problems since 2020?

The records read show no supply event for Kansas City in the last five heating seasons. Spire said that during Winter Storms Uri, Elliott, Gerri and Heather it was able to meet its customers' demand across its service territories.³ That is a utility statement that names no event.

How much spare gas capacity does Kansas City have on the coldest day?

Spare capacity on the coldest day is thin. In winter 2026-27, Spire's table shows capacity of 1,052,574 dekatherms per day (a dekatherm is a unit of gas energy) against a design day (the coldest day it plans for) of 1,007,310, a 4.49% margin that is below the 5% reserve Spire plans to hold by 5,102 dekatherms per day.¹ We recalculated the margins in the table below from the capacity and design day figures, and they match.²²

Spire's Missouri West forecast for each winter, from its November 20, 2024 plan. Capacity is what Spire calls its 'current projected available capacity'. Numbers in parentheses are shortfalls.⁹

No winter from 2026-27 on in the table is at or above 5%, and the lowest stated margin is 3.04%.¹⁰ Spire's forecast has its Missouri West design day rising slightly. By our calculation from the same table, Southern Star carries 860,512 dekatherms per day, which is 81.8% of the system's 2026-27 capacity and 85.4% of its design day.² Capacity is the same in every winter and matches the total of the city gate table (a city gate is the point where a pipeline delivers gas to Spire).¹¹ The table lists no storage line. Spire said its two West storage contracts, with Southern Star and Panhandle, give a maximum deliverability of 513,878 dekatherms per day, and the plan does not say whether that is already counted in the pipeline capacity figures. Spire said the pipelines serving Missouri West have even less available capacity than those serving Missouri East, and that Southern Star has no available market area capacity where it is currently needed on the eastern side of Kansas City.⁴ Spire also said that Tallgrass has roughly 12,500 dekatherms per day available into its Jackson city gate.²⁵

What is driving new natural gas demand?

The public record read shows one planned gas-fired generator in the Kansas City metro, and no filing read ties it to Spire's system. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes a monthly inventory of planned power plants, called EIA-860M. Its September 2026 edition lists Associated Electric Cooperative's Turney Energy Center in Clinton County, Missouri, a combustion turbine of 411.4 megawatts net summer planned for 2027.¹² The inventory does not say how it is supplied with gas. A search of Federal Register notices from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on pipelines since January 2025 for the metro's counties found none. Spire said growth areas on its systems may require changes to its supply portfolio or distribution system, which may not result in added supply.³ Data centers: As of October 28, 2026, we found no gas-fired plant, pipeline lateral or special gas contract serving a data center on Spire's Missouri West system in the official records we searched.¹³ Evergy's quarterly report of August 5, 2026 concerns electric service, not gas; it describes data center agreements with a combined projected peak load of about 2,600 megawatts, with no fuel or location stated.¹⁴ Nearby: On September 3, 2026, the Missouri commission set an intervention deadline on Evergy's request for a certificate for a 710 megawatt gas combined-cycle plant, Buchanan Bluffs Energy Center Unit 2, in Buchanan County. Buchanan County is not a Kansas City metro county.

Are upgrades arriving in time?

Spire's plan shows no pipeline or storage addition for Missouri West. It said it does not forecast needing to add incremental transportation capacity, and that its reserve margins in the West are thinning and will be monitored.³

Winter and market context

Regionally. Kansas City spans Missouri and Kansas, and both states sit in EIA's Midwest storage region. EIA lists that region's working gas (gas in storage) at 1,065 billion cubic feet for the week ending October 16, 2026. The five-year comparison EIA states was not read. EIA's citygate price tables list 8.52 dollars per thousand cubic feet in Missouri for July 2026 and 7.01 in Kansas, which are commodity prices and not evidence of a constraint.^C2 National conditions and Henry Hub prices are given in the note to this sentence.²⁴ Pipeline notices. Southern Star's public page lists no winter or critical notices. The Tallgrass and Rockies Express pages return no static content, and Panhandle Eastern's posting page was not read, so the public record doesn't show recent winter notices for the pipelines that carry Kansas City's gas.^D1 The next capture is the early December winter refresh.

Winter weather

All three of the last three winters were milder than the 1991-2020 normal at the Kansas City International Airport weather station, measured in heating degree days (how far each day's average temperature fell below 65 degrees Fahrenheit).¹⁵

Heating degree days, November to March, as a share of the 1991-2020 normal, from NOAA ACIS.¹⁶

NOAA's Climate Prediction Center outlook issued October 15, 2026 gives Kansas City (Missouri side) the same close-to-even split for November 2026 to January 2027 and December 2026 to February 2027, as a probability for a three-month average, not a forecast of specific days or of an outage.¹⁷

Policy context

Kansas law limits what cities can do to restrict gas use, and it applies to the Kansas counties of the metro, not to Spire's Missouri territory. Kansas Senate Bill 24, the Kansas energy choice act of 2021, says a municipality shall not impose a binding action that prohibits, restricts or limits an end use customer's use of a utility service.^P1

What is the outlook for Kansas City gas capacity through 2029?

Discovery Energy rates the outlook for Kansas City natural gas capacity through 2029 as Elevated (confidence: Medium): Spire's own table states reserve margins below the 5% thin-margin threshold in every winter from 2026-27, and its plan says it does not forecast needing to add transportation capacity, so no approved or scheduled fix is in the record. Documented risk factors: F1 (concentration), counted as one factor: Southern Star carries more than 10% of the design day, by our calculation from the same Spire table. One factor alone does not move the level up from Elevated. Three developments would change the assessment: (1) a Spire plan or a Missouri Public Service Commission review shows a different 2026-27 or 2027-28 margin, or a capacity addition with a budget or approval; (2) Spire or the Commission documents the gas supply source and in-service date of the Turney Energy Center, or another large load on Spire's system; (3) records for the Kansas counties, where Kansas Gas Service and others serve, are read and show a constraint. Confidence is Medium: the level rests on Spire's record for its whole Missouri West system, which cannot be split out for the metro; the Kansas side is not covered; the plan is from November 2024, inside the four-year limit for a current record. Outlook levels, from least to most concern: Stable, Watch, Elevated, High, Severe. Levels describe the public record of capacity and supply risk; confidence is reported separately. They are qualitative assessments, not forecasts of outages.

What's new (as of October 28, 2026)

The Missouri commission set an intervention deadline on September 3, 2026 for a gas plant in Buchanan County, which is not in the metro. Evergy's report of August 5, 2026 describes data center agreements without naming a fuel or location.¹⁸ Both are described under 'What is driving new natural gas demand?'

What should Kansas City-area facilities check now?

• Tariffs and charges, through a utility audit. Confirm each account is on the right rate class and tariff, and that riders, demand charges and capacity-related charges are billed correctly. Over 70% of the clients Discovery Energy has audited were billed incorrectly. An audit verifies tariffs and charges and recovers overcharges before winter costs rise.
• Which utility and rate. Confirm whether each site is served by Spire, another Missouri or Kansas utility or a municipal system, and which rate class it is on, because the record read covers only Spire's Missouri West system.
• Backup plans and fuel. Check that alternate-fuel and curtailment plans are current and feasible, and that fuel inventories and resupply arrangements are in place before December.
• Upcoming proceedings. Watch for Spire's next integrated resource plan and any Missouri Public Service Commission review of its gas supply. Discovery Energy reviews service elections, interruption terms and regulatory proceedings for organizations across the U.S. and Canada, so capacity changes are understood before they reach the bill. [Schedule a review]

Frequently asked questions

Related case studies

Discovery Energy publishes gas capacity case studies for other metros, using the same method and outlook scale.

• St. Louis natural gas capacity case study (outlook: Elevated)
• Cincinnati area natural gas capacity case study (outlook: Elevated)
• Lansing natural gas capacity case study (outlook: Elevated)
• Minneapolis and the CenterPoint area natural gas capacity case study (outlook: Elevated)

All gas capacity ratings by U.S. metro

Notes

1. Spire, d/b/a Spire Missouri East and Spire Missouri West, 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (final, November 20, 2024), Missouri Public Service Commission, PDF page 42 (East and West 20-year supply forecast tables). A utility filing; the figures are for the whole Missouri West system. Column heads: winter, firm design day forecast, minimum reserve at 5%, total requirement with 5% reserve, firm transport by pipeline, current projected available capacity, reserve margin percentage, resource (shortfall) or sufficiency. ↩
2. Calculations: margin = (capacity - design day) / design day; shortfall = capacity - total requirement with 5% reserve; share = source line / current projected available capacity, or / design day, both for 2026-27 and from the same table. Illustrative of the plan's own figures; not a Spire statement. ↩
3. Same plan, PDF pages 24, 33 and 41 (4.2 system description, 5.4 peak day forecast approach, 6.5 future portfolio). Utility statements, not findings. The peak day forecast method is a nonlinear multivariate autoregressive regression on heating-degree days, with one forecast for each system. ↩
4. Same plan, PDF pages 36 to 38 (6.2.1 City gate pipeline transport capacity: city gate capacity tables and Spire's statements on capacity available from each pipeline). ↩
5. Not established, and left out of the page: the Missouri Public Service Commission's staff reliability reviews of Spire (not found; the commission's EFIS system was not searched); records for the Kansas counties (Kansas Gas Service, Atmos Energy, municipal systems) and Liberty, Empire District Gas and Summit Natural Gas in Missouri; who pays (cost allocation among customer classes); tariff interruption priorities and penalties; delivery-point utilization from pipeline postings (next capture about March 1, 2027); the FY2025 Spire annual reports to the commission, which are not public (the links point to a staging host that requires a login). ↩
6. Spire, Rules and Regulations, P.S.C. MO. No. 9, Sheets R-1 (West operating unit) and R-1.1 (East operating unit), file posted November 2025, sheets dated December 2021. A tariff names counties served; it does not say how many customers in each county. ↩
7. Spire, Rules and Regulations, P.S.C. MO. No. 9, Sheets R-1 (West operating unit) and R-1.1 (East operating unit), file posted November 2025, sheets dated December 2021. A tariff names counties served; it does not say how many customers in each county. ↩
8. Spire, Rules and Regulations, P.S.C. MO. No. 9, Sheets R-1 (West operating unit) and R-1.1 (East operating unit), file posted November 2025, sheets dated December 2021. A tariff names counties served; it does not say how many customers in each county. The system also serves customers in Andrew, Barry, Buchanan, Greene and Jasper counties, among others. ↩
9. Spire, d/b/a Spire Missouri East and Spire Missouri West, 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (final, November 20, 2024), Missouri Public Service Commission, PDF page 42 (East and West 20-year supply forecast tables). A utility filing; the figures are for the whole Missouri West system. Column heads: winter, firm design day forecast, minimum reserve at 5%, total requirement with 5% reserve, firm transport by pipeline, current projected available capacity, reserve margin percentage, resource (shortfall) or sufficiency. ↩
10. Spire, d/b/a Spire Missouri East and Spire Missouri West, 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (final, November 20, 2024), Missouri Public Service Commission, PDF page 42 (East and West 20-year supply forecast tables). A utility filing; the figures are for the whole Missouri West system. Column heads: winter, firm design day forecast, minimum reserve at 5%, total requirement with 5% reserve, firm transport by pipeline, current projected available capacity, reserve margin percentage, resource (shortfall) or sufficiency. ↩
11. Same plan, PDF pages 38 and 39 (6.2.3 contracted pipeline storage capacity and 6.2.4 on-system underground storage capacity). Utility statements. Capacity is 1,052,574 dekatherms per day in every winter, the same as the city gate table's total of 1,052,574. ↩
12. Lines computed from EIA-860M (September 2026, Planned sheet), the Federal Register search of FERC notices by county and Discovery Energy's EIA-176 county lists; the EIA-860M file is. The inventory is preliminary and does not list data centers or units not yet reported. ↩
13. Discovery Energy data center scan log, October 28, 2026; a search that finds nothing does not prove that no project exists. ↩
14. Evergy, Inc. (SEC filing), Evergy 10-Q for quarter ended June 30, 2026, Form 10-Q, FY2026 Q2 (2026-08-05 (signature date; period ended 2026-06-30)), Notes, Large Load Customers. ↩
15. NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days (base 65F) and 1991-2020 normals for KANSAS CITY INTL AP, November to March, computed; NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days (base 65F) and 1991-2020 normals for KANSAS CITY INTL AP, November to March, computed; NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days (base 65F) and 1991-2020 normals for KANSAS CITY INTL AP, November to March, computed. [W5-WX-HDD-kansas_city-2023-24, W5-WX-HDD-kansas_city-2024-25, W5-WX-HDD-kansas_city-2025-26]. ↩
16. NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days (base 65F) and 1991-2020 normals for KANSAS CITY INTL AP, November to March, computed; NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days (base 65F) and 1991-2020 normals for KANSAS CITY INTL AP, November to March, computed; NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days (base 65F) and 1991-2020 normals for KANSAS CITY INTL AP, November to March, computed. [W5-WX-HDD-kansas_city-2023-24, W5-WX-HDD-kansas_city-2024-25, W5-WX-HDD-kansas_city-2025-26]. ↩
17. NOAA Climate Prediction Center, official 90-day temperature outlook issued October 15, 2026 (GIS shapefiles; the favored category at the metro's principal county); the favored category's probability is NOAA's labelled value for the area, and the other two categories follow NOAA's published convention for the 3-class outlook maps, computed; NOAA Climate Prediction Center, official 90-day temperature outlook issued October 15, 2026 (GIS shapefiles; the favored category at the metro's principal county); the favored category's probability is NOAA's labelled value for the area, and the other two categories follow NOAA's published convention for the 3-class outlook maps, computed. [W5-WX-CPC-kansas_city-1, W5-WX-CPC-kansas_city-2]. The split is 33.0% above normal, 33.3% near normal and 33.7% below normal for both periods. ↩
18. Missouri Public Service Commission, PSC sets intervention deadline in Evergy Missouri CCN requests, Evergy Metro / Evergy Missouri West CCN requests (press release PR-27-19) (2026-09-03), Press release body; Evergy, Inc. (SEC filing), Evergy 10-Q for quarter ended June 30, 2026, Form 10-Q, FY2026 Q2 (2026-08-05 (signature date; period ended 2026-06-30)), Notes, Large Load Customers. ↩
19. Spire's FY2023 (East) and FY2024 (East and West) annual reports to the Missouri Public Service Commission were registered by hand (to 03) and read for capacity data; they hold financial and plant schedules and no design day or supply tables, so no figure on this page comes from them.
20. R11 searched: Missouri Revised Statutes and Missouri bills on local restrictions on gas connections (search found bills, no enacted statute confirmed); Kansas energy choice act read from the enrolled bill, as codified in K.S.A. 66-1288 (codified text not read).
21. Table basis: population is from the Census Vintage 2025 estimates; the tariff column is from Spire's tariff sheets R-1 and R-1.1; the other-utility column is from Discovery Energy's county lists built from EIA-176 reports (read only), which show where a utility reports operations, not tariff territory. 'None read' means no utility record was read for that county. The metro's counties are those in the federal definition of the metro area, OMB Bulletin No. 23-01 (July 21, 2023). They also list Liberty in Cass and Bates counties, Empire District Gas in Platte County, the City of Plattsburg in Clinton County, Summit Natural Gas in Caldwell County, the City of Louisburg and La Cygne Gas in Miami County, and La Cygne Gas Company in Linn County. ↩
22. Margin check: the margin was calculated as (capacity - design day) / design day from the same table, and each calculated margin matches Spire's stated margin in every row shown. Parentheses are Spire's shortfall sign. Source: the plan's forecast table. ↩
23. The counties are Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami and Wyandotte counties, Kansas; and Bates, Caldwell, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Jackson, Lafayette, Platte and Ray counties, Missouri.
24. National conditions and Henry Hub prices. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said on October 15, 2026 that there is an elevated likelihood of above-normal seasonal precipitation for much of the Central and Southern Plains, which includes Kansas and western Missouri, and that the probability of at least a strong El Nino event continuing through January to March 2027 is 80%. EIA said on October 6, 2026 that it expects U.S. natural gas inventories to enter the winter heating season 2% above the previous five-year average. Its October 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook says prolonged periods of cold weather could increase withdrawals beyond its forecast. EIA's Henry Hub spot price table lists 3.28 and 3.10 dollars per million Btu for the first days of the week beginning October 19, 2026. These are national conditions and commodity prices, not evidence of a constraint. ↩
25. Spire also said that it is limited in how much more gas it can pull from Rockies Express and Panhandle Eastern, and that portfolio changes are increasingly challenging because capacity in the market is scarce. ↩

Market and weather sources

Public web sources saved and hashed on October 27, 2026. They are context, separate from the regulatory record cited in the Notes. The Climate Prediction Center issues its seasonal outlook once each month near mid-month; the next issue is expected in November 2026.

1. A1. U.S. Energy Information Administration, press release, "EIA expects a mixed picture for winter fuel costs this year," October 6, 2026. Link
2. A2. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 2026 (natural gas storage). Link
3. B1. NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Prognostic Discussion for Long-Lead Seasonal Outlooks, issued October 15, 2026. Link
4. B2. NOAA Climate Prediction Center, official 90-day temperature outlook, GIS data, issued October 15, 2026, saved October 28, 2026. Link
5. B3. NOAA Regional Climate Centers, ACIS web service, monthly heating degree days and 1991-2020 normals, saved October 28, 2026. Link
6. C1. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Working Gas in Underground Storage, release of October 22, 2026. Link
7. C3. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Price, daily. Link
8. C2. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas Citygate Price in Missouri, Kansas, monthly. Link and Link ↩
9. D1. Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline, public home page, saved October 27, 2026; Tallgrass Interstate Gas Transmission and Rockies Express Pipeline home pages saved the same day (no static notice list); Energy Transfer's site disallows automated downloads. Link ↩

Policy sources

Official sources saved and hashed on October 27, 2026. They are context, separate from the regulatory record cited in the Notes.

1. P1. Kansas Legislature, Senate Bill No. 24, enrolled (Kansas energy choice act), 2021-2022 session, saved October 27, 2026. Link ↩

Sources

1. Spire Missouri Inc., 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (final, November 20, 2024), Missouri Public Service Commission filing (manual browser download).
2. Spire Missouri Inc., Rules and Regulations, P.S.C. MO. No. 9. Link
3. Office of Management and Budget, OMB Bulletin No. 23-01, Revised Delineations of Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Micropolitan Statistical Areas, and Combined Statistical Areas, July 21, 2023.