Natural Gas Prices

[Jacobpilot]

Natural gas storage exceed year-ago levels, and production is higher

According to this morning's EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report, natural gas storage levels for the Lower 48 states, as of December 12, are slightly above 2013 levels for the first time this year. Inventories totaled 3,295 billion cubic feet (Bcf) as of December 12, compared to 3,289 Bcf in the same week of 2013. Stock levels fell sharply in early 2014 because of extremely cold weather, and remained at or below the five-year minimum level up until this week.

Despite concerns raised about the storage deficit going into the 2014-15 heating season, the year-over-year gap in inventories has been continually falling since April, when it was nearly 1,000 Bcf. Storage levels are still 258 Bcf lower than the five-year (2009 – 13) average, but this gap has also narrowed substantially since April.

At the start of the heating season, the storage deficit was 238 Bcf, but a combination of strong year-over-year production growth, and relatively moderate temperatures compared to last winter, has helped erase this deficit. From November 1, 2014 through this most recent storage report (December 12), storage withdrawals averaged 6.1 Bcf per day (Bcf/d), compared to 12.4 Bcf/d over the same period in 2013.

In the past several weeks, natural gas production levels have risen to record highs, according to production data from Bentek Energy, LLC. Dry natural gas production averaged 70.8 Bcf/d since November 1, which is an increase of 4.8 Bcf/d over that same period in 2013, according to Bentek. A contributing factor to lower production levels in 2013 was production freeze-offs that occurred in December 2013. In the current Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecast that production will continue to increase through 2015.

According to Bentek data, consumption has averaged 78.1 Bcf/d since November 1, 2014, compared to 83.0 Bcf/d over the same time period last year. More moderate temperatures in 2014 are supporting the decrease in consumption; heating degree days since the start of November have been 7.2% lower in 2014 compared to 2013. EIA forecasts that natural gas consumption for the remaining months of the winter will be much lower than last year's historically cold winter, driven by closer-to-average NOAA temperature forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Since the start of November, production has levels were 91.3% of consumption on average. This percentage is higher than last year, when production accounted for 79.4% of consumption. Lower net imports are also contributing to the increasing share of consumption being satisfied by domestic production.

EIA forecasts that inventories at the end of March 2015 will be 1,431 Bcf, significantly higher than the 2014 end-of-March inventories, which were at an 11-year low of 857 Bcf. However, even if the rest of the winter matches last winter in severity, it is unlikely that storage inventories would drop as low as they did at the end of last winter because of the gains in production.

[dan_s]

You can find weekly storage levels for the last five years at this website: http://www.americanoilman.com/

Click on "Gas Storage" in the upper left.

We definitely need a cold January to shore up the natural gas price.

[Jacobpilot]

The weather has turned very cold this week. What happened to the theory that NG prices are related to the weather.
Does not seem to be working any more.??

[dan_s]

Traders are all looking at today's storage report. Storage now very close to the 5-year average due to the warmer than normal December. One 200+ Bcf draw will help firm up prices.

When you look at the national weather forecasts keep in mind that Illinois, Minn, Wis, Ohio, Michigan and Texas are the six states that burn the most gas for space heating. People tend to focus on the Northeast where they still use a lot of heating oil.