Cold Weather Pushes Northeast Natural Gas Demand Higher

Before the bullish winter of 2021-22, it appeared the Northeast natural gas market was headed for familiar territory: worsening seasonal takeaway constraints and deeper, constraint-driven price discounts starting as early as this spring. Instead, the market went in the other direction the past few months. Takeaway utilization out of Appalachia has been lower year-on-year and, for the most part, Appalachian supply basin prices have followed Henry Hub higher even as that benchmark rocketed to 14-year highs. That’s not to say that constraints out of the Northeast aren’t on the horizon. But the market is now poised to escape the worst of it this year, despite the completion of the last major takeaway pipeline project in the region, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), being pushed out another year or longer, if it crosses the finish line at all. In today’s RBN blog, we provide an update on regional fundamentals and what recent trends mean for gas production growth and pricing in the region.

Weather is the perpetual wildcard in the natural gas market, but it’s been particularly shifty this winter, keeping market participants — and weather forecasters, for that matter — on their toes. Gas futures prices started this season at $3.30-plus/MMBtu, but then endured some of the warmest weather on record (in November and January), including a couple of polar vortex head fakes over the past month or so — weather forecasts at times in January started off much colder but ultimately reversed course. Prompt CME/NYMEX Henry Hub futures prices have seesawed as a result. Despite the weather setbacks, however, prices have held on in the $2.40-$2.70/MMBtu range through much of winter and averaged more than $0.60/MMBtu higher year-on-year in January. And, with an Arctic blast set to unfurl across the Lower 48 this week, prices last Friday topped $3/MMBtu again in intraday trading before settling in the high-$2.80s/MMBtu Friday and Monday. Today, we examine the supply-demand factors underlying the recent price action, and prospects for sustained $3/MMBtu gas prices.

The U.S. gas market in April — the first month of the official storage injection season — was anything but typical. Production was at record highs, nearly 8.0 Bcf/d higher than last year. At the same time, weather in April was exceptionally cold, which meant storage activity remained in withdrawal mode on a net U.S. basis through the first three weeks of the month — a first for the April gas market going back at least eight years. That anomaly, in turn, led to an expanding deficit in storage compared to previous years, deferring the inevitable — shoulder season weather and supply surpluses — for another month. But now, in May, with the cold-weather effects on gas demand fading and record production levels here to stay, the market is bracing for a storage tsunami. The question is, will it be enough to erase the massive inventory deficit compared to recent years? Today, we update our analysis of the gas market balance and implications for the 2018 injection season.