February 15, 2021 – Natural Gas World
US Spot Gas Tops $600 as Cold Spreads
Oil, Natural Gas Majors Say Hydrogen May Lie at Heart of Energy Future
By Dale Lunan
Spot gas prices in parts of the US soared as high as US$600/mn Btu over the past weekend, RBN Energy said in a February 15 blog, as the spread of a polar vortex across much of North America pushed natural gas and electricity demand to record highs.
As the vortex, dubbed Winter Storm Uri, spread across large swaths of the Lower-48, temperatures plunged as low as -40 ºC and gas schedulers at utilities and end-use facilities across the Midwest scrambled to find supplies to meet expected demand over the Presidents’ Day long weekend.
In Oklahoma, RBN Energy’s Sheetal Nasta wrote, gas sold at the Oneok Gas Transmission trading hub went for as much as $600/mn Btu and averaged nearly $370/mn Btu for a four-day package covering the extended weekend period, Friday to Monday.
“That’s the highest price seen for any hub during intraday trading Friday, and also now the all-time high for any hub – by far,” Nasta wrote. “Similar stories played out at other hubs in the Midcontinent – the average for Midcon hubs was nearly $240/mn Btu – as well as many western hubs, where even the lowest trades of the day were in the triple digits.”
Where prices soared, Nasta wrote, was almost as surprising as how high they ballooned. For the most part, triple-digit prices were confined to markets west of the Mississippi, while markets in the Northeast and Gulf Coast were much more modestly impacted.
Read the full article here: https://www.naturalgasworld.com/us-spot-gas-tops-600-as-cold-spreads-85543
