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You wouldn’t know it from the $2.50-plus/MMBtu Henry Hub prompt natural gas futures prices in the past couple of months, but the U.S. gas market this injection season just barely managed to avoid a complete meltdown. Despite gas production volumes trailing year-ago levels all summer long, it wasn’t until the last month or two of the traditional injection season (April through October) that the market tightened enough to escape a major storage crunch. In reality, it took the multi-pronged effects of production cutbacks — in part from hurricane-related disruptions — higher LNG and pipeline exports, and cooler fall weather, to make that happen. Today, we review the U.S. natural gas supply/demand balance and implications for 2021.

While the crude oil market meltdown has taken center stage in recent weeks, and for good reason, the natural gas market is bracing for its own fallout. The CME/NYMEX Henry Hub April futures price, which was already at a multi-year low, buckled last week, falling to as low as $1.602/MMBtu on March 23, and expired Friday at $1.634/MMBtu, the lowest April expiration settle since 1995. On its first day in prompt position, the May futures contract yesterday eked out a late-day, 1.9-cent gain that brought it back up near $1.70/MMBtu as traders continued weighing competing market factors. Gas futures earlier in March were initially buoyed by the assumption that the low oil-price environment would slow associated gas production — and it will, eventually. But that initial bullish sentiment was quickly usurped by the more immediate effects of demand losses resulting from the economic slowdown caused by COVID-19, as well as from mild weather. Today, we look at how these developments are shaping gas supply-demand fundamentals heading into the gas storage injection season.

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.

The once unthinkable level of 100 Bcf/d for U.S. natural gas production is just around the corner, it would seem. Lower-48 gas production last week hit a new high of 96.4 Bcf/d, after surpassing 95 Bcf/d not too long ago (in late October). That’s remarkable considering that production was only 52 Bcf/d just 12 years ago. Gas demand from domestic consumption and exports this year has set plenty of records of its own, but the incremental demand has not been nearly enough to keep the storage inventory from building a significant surplus compared with last year. CME/NYMEX Henry Hub prompt gas futures prices tumbled nearly 40 cents last week to $2.28/MMBtu, the lowest November-traded settle since 2015. Today, we break down the supply-demand fundamentals behind this year’s bearish storage and price reality.

U.S. LNG export capacity has increased 40% in the last seven months, from 4.3 Bcf/d in April to about 6 Bcf/d now, and feedgas demand at the terminals already exceeds that, with more than 7 Bcf/d flowing to the facilities in recent weeks. With each new liquefaction train coming online, feedgas deliveries to export terminals have steadily climbed, and, for the most part, have sustained at rates that suggest consistently high utilization of the facilities’ capacity, particularly once they begin commercial operations and regardless of international market dynamics. And, that demand is expected to increase further as more liquefaction capacity comes online in 2020 and beyond. The emergence of this seemingly inelastic demand with a baseload-like pull on domestic gas supplies marks an underlying shift in the U.S. gas market that, along with the rising baseload demand from power generation, will make national benchmark Henry Hub prices more prone to spikes. Today, we explain how ever-increasing LNG exports will reshape the U.S. demand profile and, in turn, Henry price trends.

U.S. natural gas prices are increasingly susceptible to periodic spikes and volatility as baseload demand for gas — or the minimum level of demand that must be met on a daily basis — specifically from power generators and liquefaction plants, has rapidly climbed in recent years, and is still rising. The power sector has upped the ante on its gas consumption, with gas replacing coal as the most cost-effective go-to fuel for meeting baseload electricity demand. On top of that, feedgas deliveries to LNG export terminals have added 7 Bcf/d of demand to the gas market in the past three years, much of which is flowing at high, baseload-like rates, and that demand is set to increase further as more liquefaction projects are completed. These two market components together — LNG exports and gas-fired power generation — will take a bigger slice of domestic gas supplies, making the gas market ever more sensitive to weather, maintenance and other factors that disrupt that baseload level of demand or the supplies that serve it. We’ve already begun to see the effects of this phenomenon on Henry Hub and other regional gas prices. Today, we delve into this fundamental shift and what it could mean for the gas market.

The CME/NYMEX prompt Henry Hub natural gas price yesterday settled at about $2.28/MMBtu, down 40 cents from the summer peak of $2.68 in mid-September. That’s also a long way down from the $3-plus prices seen at this time last year. What’s more, daily prompt-month contract settlements this injection season, from April to present, have averaged the lowest in over 20 years. This, despite the Lower-48 gas storage inventory starting the 2019 storage injection season in April well below year-ago and five-year-average levels. How did we get here? Today, we begin a short series breaking down the supply-demand fundamentals that brought the gas market to its knees in recent months.

After sustaining a record pace since March, natural gas storage injections have been slowing dramatically and are projected to fall below the 5-year-average rate over the next few weeks. While weather has factored heavily into the swing in storage activity, increased baseload demand for gas in the power sector has amplified the effects of weather anomalies and electricity demand seasonality on overall gas demand. As a result, gas demand volumes have diverged from historical levels on a temperature-adjusted basis. Today, we examine the changing historical relationships of power burn and storage injections to weather and electricity demand.

Natural gas storage activity this spring suggested extremely bearish fundamentals. The market injected gas into storage at a record pace, well above year-ago and 5-year-average levels. The high injection rate was in part a result of demand loss as weather abruptly moderated in April and May. However, a look at injections on a weather-adjusted basis suggests there’s another dynamic at play — namely, that increased baseload demand for gas in the power sector amplified the effects of the mild weather this spring, lowering demand even more than temperatures alone would indicate. Moreover, that same dynamic could have an opposite, equally extreme effect during the hotter months when power generation is the primary driver of gas demand. Today, we look at the latest gas storage and demand trends, and what they can tell us about the balance of injection season.

Lower-48 natural gas demand surged in 2018, managing to offset ballooning production volumes and putting the gas market on the razor’s edge going into this winter. Demand growth occurred across all domestic sectors as well as export markets, but was led by increased demand from power generators. Some of that was weather-related. However, there also was a level-shift up in demand on a per-degree basis, meaning more gas was burned than historically at the same temperatures, signaling a gain in gas market share. What were the drivers, and can we expect this growth pace to continue? Today, we take a closer look at the demand components behind the recent growth trends.