Low natural gas prices the past several years have allowed consumers to stay affordably warm, while leaving petroleum producers out in the in cold.

But more analysts are warning that balance could soon shift, driving up heating bills this winter.Of course, as with so many things in life, it will all depend on the weather.

“For the last 10 years we have been in a period of abundance. That is gone now,” said Sarp Ozkan, a senior energy market analyst at Ponderosa Energy in Denver.

Ponderosa Energy is calling for a 57 percent spike in natural gas prices, from $2.86 per million British thermal units (Btu) in the fourth quarter to as high as $4.50 per million Btu next year.

“We expect to see strength in gas prices as well. There has been a lot of new demand that has come online,” said Erika Coombs, a senior energy analyst with BTU Analytics in Denver.

BTU Analytics has a lower expected average for natural gas prices this winter at $3.49 per million Btu. Even that is about 75 percent above where prices were last winter. With the exception of January, spot prices for natural gas at the Henry Hub, the main trading venue for the commodity, were under $2 per million Btu.

Several things are coming together to absorb the country’s excess natural gas supply, including increased exports, new and thirsty sources of demand, and a reversal in production.

The fracking boom targeted oil, but in the process unleashed large amounts of “associated” gas, which pushed prices down. Even after oil prices fell sharply in late 2014, producers kept active longer and stronger than expected.

But the inflection point has finally arrived. Average daily gas production in the U.S. was down 2.5 percent in June from June 2015, marking the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Less gas produced means less going into storage. While storage levels are at record highs for this time of year, the inflows came short of expectations and didn’t match last year’s levels. One reason was that hot temperatures this summer caused more people in many parts of the country to crank up the air conditioning, which required more electricity generated from gas-powered turbines.

Ozkan doesn’t see oil prices getting high enough to revive significant drilling until 2018, meaning the natural gas production that comes with it will continue be depressed. And while some gas-first producers are waking up from an extended slumber, it will take time for them to make a difference.

Baker Hughes reports that as of the week of Sept. 2, only 88 rigs in North America were specifically looking for gas, while 407 were searching for oil. To provide a contrast, during the last week of August 2008, there were 1,606 rigs dedicated to gas and 416 looking for oil. In June of that year, the spot price for natural gas averaged $12.69 per million Btu, until the financial crisis hit that September like a ton of bricks.

Should prices rise sharply, the financial hedges and long-term contracts utilities deploy will help cushion against any shocks. But people will notice a difference when it comes to writing that monthly check.

Tim Sheesley, chief economist with Xcel Energy, said he doesn’t forecast the kind of run-up in gas prices that Ponderosa and BTU Analytics predict.

“The futures market looks like we could go 25 percent higher to $3.15 per million Btu for our region. That isn’t historically high,” Sheesley said. Colorado consumers tend to get a discount from the national averages due to the supply coming out of Weld and Garfield counties.

Part of the problem consumers face, however, is one of a reference point, he said. Gasoline at $2.30 a gallon may feel like a big hike for someone who bought it at $1.78 a gallon for a brief span — until the memory of gasoline at $3.50 a gallon and higher is recalled.

The weather remains the biggest near-term driver of where natural gas prices will go this winter and on Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dropped its La Niña watch in favor of neutral scenario.

“Earlier this summer we were more confident of an La Niña developing over the fall and into the winter,” said Tom Di Liberto, a meteorologist with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md.

La Niña, driven by colder than average water and air temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean, usually brings colder temperatures and more snow to the northern third of the country, while leaving the southern third of the country warmer and drier than normal. That is opposite of the El Niño pattern, driven by warmer than normal conditions in the Pacific.

Last winter’s El Niño was the third strongest on record in the U.S. since 1950, contributing to anomalies, such as people wearing shorts and flip flops in New York’s Central Park in December. That month last year, New York City temperature ran 13 degrees above the average, something unlikely to repeat.

“Over the summer we have seen things not develop. Neutral is slightly favored for all seasons during the fall and winter,” Di Liberto said.

Neutral favors more typical weather patterns, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee normal or no extreme events, he said.

A milder winter contributed to a 13.1 percent drop in residential demand for natural gas in the first half of the year versus the first half of 2015, according to the EIA.

A more run-of-the-mill winter could cause demand for heating gas to surge at a time when overall gas production is falling, driving prices higher even if La Niña is a no-show.

Even if natural gas prices spike later this year and next, it won’t mean the end of cheap, abundant supply, analysts said. That matters because natural gas is not only a critical fuel for heating, but also increasingly for electricity generation.

For starters, if prices reach the $4.50 per million Btu that Ponderosa Energy suggests they could hit this winter, it will only bring natural gas back to the 20-year average Henry Hub spot price as measured by the EIA.

At $4 per million Btu, producers would receive a strong signal to drill specifically for gas, Ozkan said. And assuming oil markets get more into balance by 2018, the added oil production will spin off more gas.

Some of the country’s lowest-cost natural gas reserves are in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in the country’s northeast, near major populations centers. But low prices combined with a lack of pipeline capacity has locked up much of that supply.

Expect that to change in 2018, when new pipelines will reshape how natural gas flows in the country, said Matthew Hoza, a senior energy analyst with BTU Analytics.

“We expect bullish gas prices until these projects can come online,” Hoza said.