Natural Gas Prices at a 31 month High

Commenter and Blogger R.J.S. brings the latest on Natural Gas and the impact on it from the heat wave. Focus on Fracking blogspot

Natural gas prices rose every day this week in surging to a new 31 month high, as yet another continental heat wave loomed…after ending last week unchanged at $3.674 per mmBTU as strong export demand offset cooler weather and a bearish storage report, the contract price of natural gas for August delivery opened the week higher on Monday and surged 10.5 cents, or 2.9% to a 30 month high at $3.779 per mmBTU on soaring global natural gas prices and forecasts for more air conditioning demand next week than had been previously expected…gas prices rose another 9.7 cents on Tuesday, bolstered by forecasts for hotter weather and concerns over winter supplies, and then moved up 8.3 cents more on Wednesday to a 31 month high of $3.959 per mmBTU on forecasts that the hotter weather and higher air conditioning demand would continue through early August…prices then topped $4 for the first time since early December 2018 on Thursday, as traders looked past a bearish storage print from the EIA and focused instead on persistently strong demand and relatively light production, with the August contract gaining 4.4 cents on the day and settling at $4.003 per mmBTU . . . forecasts for an even hotter coast to coast heat dome in the coming week pushed natural gas prices another 5.7 cents higher to yet another 31 month high of $4.060 per mmBTU on Friday, putting the front-month price up almost 11% for the week, its biggest weekly percentage gain since February . . .

The natural gas storage report from the EIA for the week ending July 16th indicated that the amount of natural gas held in underground storage in the US rose by 49 billion cubic feet to 2,678 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which still left our gas supplies 532 billion cubic feet, or 16.6% below the 3,210 billion cubic feet that were in storage on July 16th of last year, and 176 billion cubic feet, or 6.2% below the five-year average of 2,854 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been in storage as of the 16th of July in recent years…the 49 billion cubic feet increase in US natural gas in storage this week was more than the median forecast for a 43 billion cubic foot addition from a S&P Global Platts survey of analysts, and ​well ​above the average addition of 36 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have typically been injected into natural gas storage during the same week over the past 5 years, and also above the 38 billion cubic feet that were added to natural gas storage during the corresponding week of 2020 . . .