Natural Gas may be going to $5.00/MMBtu
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:11 pm
The weather pattern is changing. Even NCEP is now forecasting a cold start to January in the U.S.
Per Dr. Joe Bastardi's daily update ( https://www.weatherbell.com/premium/ ) the eastern 2/3rds of the U.S. may see temps 8 to 10 degrees below normal from mid-January to mid-February. BTW "normal" is still very cold during that time period.
Natural gas in storage will be ~2,500 Bcf on January 1, 2019. Just normal winter weather in January in the eastern 2/3rds of the U.S. will require draws of more than a TCF from storage next month.
Storage "Base Load" is ~1,000 Bcf. So, if we get to 1/31/2019 with ~1,500 Bcf in storage there will not be enough "working gas" to safely make it through February, much less a cold March. Last winter (considered a normal winter), over 2,000 Bcf was draw from storage during the first quarter.
This looks like a repeat of the 2013-2014 winter.
In the first week of April, 2014 natural gas storage was draw down to 827 Bcf. In the first quarter of 2014, the price of gas peaked at $5.43/MMBtu and stayed over $4.00 the entire year because it took the entire year to refill storage back to a safe level heading into the next winter. Refilling storage is not an option and it can be a significant part of the annual demand.
Check out our recent profiles on CRK and GDP that can be found under the Small-Cap tab on our website. These small-cap "gassers" have a lot of upside if gas just stays over $3.00 all year.
Per Dr. Joe Bastardi's daily update ( https://www.weatherbell.com/premium/ ) the eastern 2/3rds of the U.S. may see temps 8 to 10 degrees below normal from mid-January to mid-February. BTW "normal" is still very cold during that time period.
Natural gas in storage will be ~2,500 Bcf on January 1, 2019. Just normal winter weather in January in the eastern 2/3rds of the U.S. will require draws of more than a TCF from storage next month.
Storage "Base Load" is ~1,000 Bcf. So, if we get to 1/31/2019 with ~1,500 Bcf in storage there will not be enough "working gas" to safely make it through February, much less a cold March. Last winter (considered a normal winter), over 2,000 Bcf was draw from storage during the first quarter.
This looks like a repeat of the 2013-2014 winter.
In the first week of April, 2014 natural gas storage was draw down to 827 Bcf. In the first quarter of 2014, the price of gas peaked at $5.43/MMBtu and stayed over $4.00 the entire year because it took the entire year to refill storage back to a safe level heading into the next winter. Refilling storage is not an option and it can be a significant part of the annual demand.
Check out our recent profiles on CRK and GDP that can be found under the Small-Cap tab on our website. These small-cap "gassers" have a lot of upside if gas just stays over $3.00 all year.