Natural gas prices changed direction and after the sharp gains recorded on the first week of December, natural gas was traded down last week; in particular the Henry Hub future price sharply declined during most of last week, while natural gas spot price declined by a lower rate. Due to these changes the Contango sharply fell during the week.
Here is a short review of the development of natural gas prices for the week ending on December 9th:
Natural Gas Prices November – Weekly Review and Analysis
Nymex Henry Hub Future Price (short term delivery) sharply declined during last week by 4.05% and reached on Friday $3.32/mmbtu; its average daily change was -1.47%, and its weekly average price was 4.40% below the previous week’s average price.
Natural gas spot price (Henry Hub) also declined by 2.37% during the week, but its average price was 0.41% above last week’s average price.
The difference between the Henry Hub future and spot gas prices, i.e. future price minus spot price (if the spot prices are higher than the future prices its called Backwardation, if future price is higher than its called Contango) was mostly in Contango during the week except on Wednesday when it was in Backwardation; by Friday the gap reached $0.03/mmbtu, i.e. Contango.
Natural Gas Prices Charts
The following charts present the daily changes of natural gas prices (Henry Hub) and futures prices (Nymex Henry Hub) in $/mmbtu during December 5 to December 9.
The first chart shows the changes of natural gas spot price and Henry Hub future price during last week: the Henry Hub prices sharply declined mainly during the last day of the week.
The second chart presents the daily percent changes of natural gas spot price (Henry Hub) and Nymex Henry Hub future price. The sharpest gain in the natural gas spot price was on Tuesday, while the steepest falls were on Friday (and also on Monday for the Henry Hub future price).
EIA Natural Gas Report – Highlights:
The underground natural gas storage (Billion Cubic Feet) declined for the second consecutive week; last week by 20 Bcf; the natural gas storage reached 3,831 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the current natural gas storage is 8.7% above the 5-year average, and is 2.7% above the storage level during the same week in 2010.
For the complete natural gas market report, see here.
For further reading:
Previous issues of weekly report:
- Natural Gas Prices– Weekly Recap 28 November- 2 December
- Natural Gas Prices– Weekly Recap 14-18 November