Natural gas market continues to heat up as the hot weather in the U.S mainly in the Northeast is raising the demand while the U.S natural gas production isn’t rising. According to the recent NG storage update, there was only a 62 bcf injection, which is nearly 36 Bcf below the injection from a year earlier. The expectations were higher than that; furthermore the production level didn’t rise by much. Following these changes the difference between future and spot remained mostly in Contango; it reached a weekly average of $0.052/mmbtu.
During last week the Henry Hub spot increased by 2.04% and the future (short term delivery) by 6.48%. During June, natural gas spot increased by 6.38% and the future (July delivery) by 8.68%.
Here is a short recap for the developments in natural gas market for the week ending on June 22nd 2012:
Natural Gas Market– June Review
The Nymex Henry Hub Future (short term delivery) hiked during last week by 6.48% and by Friday reached to $2.63 /mmbtu; its average daily growth was 1.32%, its weekly average price was 11.39% above the previous average price.
The Henry Hub spot also rose during last week by 2.04%, and its average price was 12.64% above the previous average price.
The difference between the NG future and spot prices, i.e. future minus spot (if the spot are higher than the future its called Backwardation, if future is higher than its called Contango) was mostly in Contango during the week; by the end the difference rose to $0.13, i.e. Contango.
Natural Gas Charts
The following charts presents Nat Gas (Henry Hub) and future (Nymex Henry Hub) in $/mmbtu between June 18th and June 22nd.
The first chart presents the movement of NAT Gas (Henry Hub future and spot) as natural gas future and spot shifted from gains to losses with no clear trend.
In the second chart are the daily percent changes of the Henry Hub spot and Nymex Henry Hub future (short term delivery).
NG Storage Update – EIA Report:
According to the recent report, the underground storage (Billion Cubic Feet) rose for the 13th consecutive weeks, last week the storage levels rose by only 62 Bcf; the storage settled at 3,006 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the current NGs storage is 27.1% above the 5-year average, and is also 29.2% above the storage level during the same week in 2011.
The recent NG storage weekly update as of June 15th.
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