Natural Gas Storage Report - Jan. 2

[dan_s]

Working gas in storage was 2,974 Bcf as of Friday, December 27, 2013, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decline of 97 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 562 Bcf less than last year at this time and 289 Bcf below the 5-year average of 3,263 Bcf.

This is smaller than I was expecting. I've always thought the weekly storage reports during the holidays were very "questionable". The EIA depends on the storage operators to send in voluntary reports. I think the EIA has to "guess" a bit on the ones that are not sent in on time. Who knows for sure when it comes to government reports. However, the next two week's draws should be very big. I have noticed over the years that when you get a report that is smaller than expected, the next week's report is much larger than expected.

Next week's report comes out on Thursday, January 9.