EIA's Natural Gas Storage Report - May 16

[dan_s]

Working gas in storage was 1,653 Bcf as of Friday, May 10, 2019, according to EIA estimates.
This represents a net increase of 106 Bcf from the previous week.
Stocks were 130 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 286 Bcf below the five-year average of 1,939 Bcf.
At 1,653 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.

Over the last 13 weeks (~ a quarter) the gap between the 5-year average has narrowed by 165 Bcf, primarily because of much larger than average builds in April. The last two weeks show the builds moving much closer to the 5-year average.

286 Bcf is still a large gap to fill, so it looks like storage will remain below the 5-year average through the summer. In June, gas demand for power generation will pick up and spike in July/August because a lot more areas now depend heavily on gas fired power plants for electricity.

So far, natural gas prices for Q2 and Q3 have remained above $2.50/mcf for Henry Hub. That is the price that I am assuming for all of my forecast/valuation models through September, 2019. I am using $2.75/mcf HH for Q4.