EIA - Natural Gas Storage Report - Mar 11

[dan_s]

Working gas in storage was 1,793 Bcf as of Friday, March 5, 2021, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decrease of 52 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 257 Bcf less than last year at this time and 141 Bcf below the five-year average of 1,934 Bcf.
At 1,793 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.

Storage is already below the 5-year average of 1,803 Bcf at the end the winter draws, which is usually the end of March. We should see at lease another 200 Bcf drawn from storage by March 31 with maybe a triple digit draw the week ending March 19.
My "Wild Ass Guess" at the storage level on April 30 is now 1,568 Bcf, which compares to the 5-year average of 2,018 Bcf on April 30. If I'm close to right about this, it will draw a lot of attention because it will be very difficult to rebuild storage before the next winter heating season arrives.

The drivers of my forecast are lower U.S. gas production, much higher exports and industrial & power generation demand coming back as we move out of "Pandemic World".

PS: The next two weeks' draws will compare to the same two weeks last year of -9 and -10 Bcf, so the delta to last year's storage level should grow to close to 400 BCF less in storage compared to last year at this time.