The EIA issued its weekly report on the natural gas market in the U.S. The report is pertaining to the week ending on January 7th, and updates on natural gas spot price, storage and consumption.
It shows a moderate decline in natural gas prices, a rise in consumption, and an ongoing decline in natural gas storage both of which are related to the cold weather.
Prices
The weekly average of natural gas spot price (Henry Hub spot) fell last week compare to its previous week by 0.7% reaching an average price of 4.48 USD/MMBTU a fall of 4 cents per MMBTU; the Henry Hub spot on Thursday (4.47 USD/MMBTU) was lower by nearly 20% compare to the price of 5.57 USD/MMBTU on November 1st, or 1.1 USD/MMBTU.
This decline in price is mostly attributed to the high production of natural gas in the U.S. which is higher by 9.4% compare to last year with 62 Bcf last week.
Consumption
There is an ongoing rise in consumption in natural gas for heating purposes as the weather, mainly in the Northeast is getting colder; according to this recent report (week of 5-12 January) there was a rise of 19% in consumption compare to the previous week, and exceeding 100 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) for each of the last three days.
Despite the news about the snow in New York, there has been a slightly warmer weather in the U.S. during the week ending on January 6th; the average U.S. temperatures were slightly colder than normal with a weekly average of 34.7 degrees – 1.3 degrees above normal, and 6.4 degrees above last year.
Natural gas Storage
In my last review about U.S. natural gas storage, there was a drop of 4.2% in underground natural gas storage (Billion Cubic Feet); in the recent published figures for the week of 7th of January there was a similar decline of 4.5%, which is a decline of over 138 Billion cubic feet.
According to this report, the natural gas storage reached a total of 2,959 billion cubic feet for all lower 48 states, which is 5.8% above the five year average (2006-2010), and higher by 107 billion cubic feet for a similar time in 2010.
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