The Energy Information Administration reported Thursday that 258 Bcf was withdrawn from storage during the week ended January 10, decreasing the U.S. working gas inventory to 3,115 Bcf. This is nearly identical to the 257-Bcf average of the 10 estimates submitted to the Bloomberg survey. The surplus to the 5-year average has now declined to 77 Bcf according to the EIA. Over the next four reports (through the week ending February 7), RBN models predict that the surplus to the 5-year average will flip to a deficit of 132 Bcf as cold weather elevates the residential and commercial consumption of gas. As seen in the chart below, the decline in the surplus to the 5-year average has coincided with an increase in prompt futures, which recently reached two daily settlements above $4.00/MMBtu for the first time in two years.
Featured Articles
Oops, (Winter's) Out of Time - Natural Gas Buyers Party Like It's 1999
After holding above $2/MMBtu in the first half of January, the CME/NYMEX February natural gas futures contract caved in this week, closing Tuesday and Wednesday at $1.895/MMBtu and $1.905/MMBtu, respectively. The last time we saw prices this low was in March 2016. But to see such levels trading in January, typically one of the coldest and highest-demand months of the year, you’d have to go back more than two decades — to 1999. Today, we explain the fundamentals behind the price collapse earlier this week and its implications for the 2020 gas market.
Razor's Edge - Tight Supply-Demand Balance Brings Back Natural Gas Price Volatility
Volatility is back big time in the U.S. natural gas market. The CME/NYMEX Henry Hub prompt natural gas futures contract in mid-November raced up more than $1.00 (28%) in the span of two days to a settlement of about $4.84/MMBtu on November 14, the highest price since February 2014, only to whipsaw back down 80 cents the next day. And, since then it hasn’t been unusual to see daily swings of 20-45 cents in either direction. As of yesterday, the now-prompt January 2019 contract was at about $4.34/MMBtu, down 27 cents on the day. The gas market hasn’t seen quite this level of volatility in a decade or more. Why now and what are the fundamentals behind it? With the coldest, highest-demand months still ahead, today’s blog provides an update of the gas supply-demand balance driving the recent price volatility.
Summertime Blues - Potential Natural Gas Storage Scenarios for the Balance of Injection Season
Hurricane Harvey has dissipated, but the affected areas, including energy infrastructure and operations, are still in recovery mode and will be for some time to come. In the natural gas market, production fell as low as 71.3 Bcf/d this past week, and has now rebounded to pre-storm levels near 72 Bcf/d. But exports to Mexico, which were averaging near 4.4 Bcf/d in the 30 days prior to Harvey, were at 3.6 Bcf/d last Friday, still lagging 0.8 Bcf/d (18%) behind their pre-storm level, after dropping to as low as 2.85 Bcf/d last week. Deliveries for LNG export are also down nearly 1.0 Bcf/d (47%) from the 30-day average to just under 1.0 Bcf/d last Friday and dropped to about 475 MMcf/d over the weekend. Meanwhile, U.S. consumption — in the power, industrial and residential and commercial sectors — this past week averaged 62.8 Bcf/d, down 6.0 Bcf/d (9%) versus last year and also 1.6 Bcf/d (3%) lower than the five-year average for this time. In another important market development, Energy Transfer Partners’ new Rover Pipeline began partial service on Friday and deliveries rose to more than 500 MMcf/d over the weekend. What will these shifts mean for the gas market balance and storage inventory? Today, we continue our analysis of the gas market balance, this time with a forward look at potential storage scenarios for the balance of injection season.
