Why is HH NGas Price UP today? - March 31

[dan_s]

Because a significant storm with temperatures 15 to 25 degrees below normal is on its way to Texas. Snow in Dallas within 5-7 days.
Watch the Saturday summary here: https://www.weatherbell.com/premium/

Snow likely in Tulsa where I used to live. We had some big snows in March, but I don't remember ever having snow in April in Tulsa.

The next two weekly natural gas storage reports for weeks ending March 28 and April 4 will show builds in the U.S. natural gas storage that are ~30 Bcf larger than normal, BUT the report for the week ending April 11th will be a much smaller build than normal and maybe a small draw from storage. The 5-year average storage build for the week ending April 11th is +53 Bcf.

Based on the CelsiusEnergy forecast ( https://www.celsiusenergy.net/ ), natural gas in storage will be ~56 Bcf below the 5-year average on April 4th, but then the storage deficit will widen to ~100 Bcf below normal by the end of April. If the storage deficit stays below normal through May, U.S. natural gas prices will remain high BECAUSE DEMAND FOR U.S. NATURAL GAS IS MUCH HIGHER THAN IT WAS 5 YEARS AGO.

Trading Economics:
"US natural gas futures rose to $4.20/MMBtu (at $4.16 when this was posted), the highest in over a week, driven by record flows to LNG export plants and a decrease in daily output. Gas exports to the eight major U.S. LNG plants averaged 15.8 bcfd in March, surpassing February’s record of 15.6 bcfd, as new units at the Plaquemines LNG plant in Louisiana began operations. At the same time, daily output declined to a one-week low of 105.2 bcfd. However, US gas production for March rose to 106.0 bcfd, up from February’s 105.1 bcfd. Mild weather in the coming weeks is expected to keep demand low, allowing utilities to replenish gas storage, potentially marking the first stockpile increase in March since 2012. Despite this, gas prices have risen over 15% in Q1, with stockpiles still about 5% below average due to the heavy withdrawals during the cold winter months." < Note that Trading Economics does not mention the weather forecast. They will in a few days because the cold wave will start being mentioned in the weather forecasts in the next few days.

What's interesting to me is that Joe Bastardi is starting to have more faith in the "AI Generated" weather forecasts.