If you’re trying to get natural gas rates in USD, then you should know how useful the usage of an API can be.
Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon gas mixture composed primarily of methane. It contains various proportions of other higher alkanes and, sometimes, a trace of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium.
It is colorless and odorless, explosive, and is generated over millions of years when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to extreme heat and pressure beneath the Earth’s surface. Besides, it is a nonrenewable hydrocarbon that is utilized as a source of energy for heating, cooking, and power generation.
Worldwide, natural gas is one of the most important commodities. The country that most produces every year is the United States, which has more than 32 billion MMcf. It’s followed by Russia, with more than 22 billion, and Iran with almost 10 billion. This clearly shows how huge the natural gas industry is.
Obtain Natural Gas Rates
Since this is an industry that moves so fast, it can be hard to stay updated on different types of rates, especially the real-time ones. For that, we highly recommend using an API, which is an interface that collects data from a place and then brings it to you, in this case, natural gas rates. That can be really useful for you and your investments, but first you need to know how to obtain this API.
There are a few softwares online that provide you with this information. However, you should be careful since not every single one of them works the same way. Choosing the wrong one can damage your investments and business.
For this example and to show you better how this works, we will use Commodities-API, a free software that counts with a large list of currencies and commodities and provides data with a precision of 2 decimal points.
To get the API, you have to:
1. Enter www.commodities-API.com and sign in to get your own API key.
2. Search for the symbols of Natural Gas and USD.
3. Use these symbols to find the commodity and currency in the list. Once you choose them, make the API call.
4. The website will return you an API in various programming languages that you can adapt and use and adapt however you like.
The result will look something like this:
{
"success": true,
"timestamp": 1519296206,
"base": "EUR",
"date": "2018-09-10",
"rates": {
"AUD": 1.566015,
"CAD": 1.560132,
"CHF": 1.154727,
"CNY": 7.827874,
"GBP": 0.882047,
"JPY": 132.360679,
"USD": 1.23396,
[...]
}
}
How Is This Information Obtained?
Commodities-API collects information from banks and stock exchanges. It then displays it to the user with an accuracy of two decimal points. To protect your privacy, it also uses bank-grade 256-bit SSL encryption.
This API delivers midpoint data, which is computed by averaging the median bid and ask rates over a set period of time. Currency and commodity price conversions use the same API endpoints and may convert any amount from one currency to another, from one commodity to another, or from one currency to another.
Also published on Medium.