The natural gas market has been cooling down in the past several weeks. The latest decline in the price of the natural gas was partly due to the slight fall in demand for natural gas – mainly in the residential/commercial sector; the supply slightly increased mainly due to rise in dry production and despite the decline in imports from Canada. Based on the EIA natural gas storage weekly report, natural gas storage buildup was 101 Bcf, which was much higher than the five year average injection and last year’s injection.
Here is a short review of the latest shifts in natural gas market for the week ending on October 4th 2013:
Natural Gas Market – October Recap
The Nymex Henry Hub Future (short term delivery) slipped again by 1.52% and reached by Friday $3.51/mmbtu; its average daily change was -0.46%; its weekly average rate was 0.24% above last week’s average rate.
The gap between the NG future and spot prices – future minus spot – was mostly in Contango during last week.
Natural Gas Charts
The following charts show the changes in Nat-gas future (Nymex Henry Hub) in $/mmbtu during September 30- October 4.
As seen in the chart herein, the natural gas price (Henry Hub future rate) has slowly decreased during last week mostly during the middle of the week.
In the second chart are the daily percent changes of the Nymex Henry Hub future (short term delivery).
EIA NG Storage Weekly Report:
The underground natural gas storage (Billion Cubic Feet) rose again during last week by 2.98% or by 101 Bcf; the storage reached 3,487 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states; the current storage is 1.40% above the 5-year average but is also 4.30% below the storage during the same week in 2012. The latest injection was higher than the five year average and last year’s: During the same week in September 2012 the natural gas injection was 77 Bcf, and the five year average injection to storage for the same week of September was 82 Bcf. This week’s injection was mostly due to the Eastern consuming region, in which the injection was 58 Bcf.
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