CME NYMEX Futures

The biggest fundamental price indicator in the natural gas market -- Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report – is about to get a major makeover. The EIA is planning to split the US gas inventory data into five regions, from three macro regions currently. The idea has been floating out there for a while, but now it looks imminent, with a good chance it is rolled out before the gas winter season comes around in November. When it does happen, the increased granularity will vastly improve the transparency of natural gas storage inventory data on a weekly basis. But there’s another reason it will be a big deal when it happens:  It will break everybody’s storage scrapes and models. Storage modelers and forecasters will have their work cut out for them. In today’s blog, we break down the upcoming changes.

At first glance, the recent purchase of a natural gas pipeline network in southern Louisiana by EnLink Midstream from Chevron does not look very exciting. One of the assets - the Sabine pipeline – backbone of the Henry Hub CME NYMEX natural gas futures contract - reported losses of $7.5 Million and total flows averaging only 200 MMcf/d on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Form 2 in 2013. So what is the value of the pipelines tied to the world’s third largest futures contract? Turns out the Henry Hub futures contract generates some pretty good revenue for the pipeline operator without moving a molecule of gas. And there’s a bright future ahead for gas pipeline networks in Louisiana these days. We explain why in today’s blog.