This article is pay walled )-:

This was ABSOLUTELY POLITICAL and is the biggest reason for NG prices to have just managed to trade sub $2, despite colder weather coming up this month!

Biggest Gas Producer Slams Biden’s LNG Freeze as Political Stunt

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-06/biggest-gas-producer-slams-biden-s-lng-freeze-as-political-stunt

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Presidential Elections And Biden’s Gas Export Pause

https://www.forbes.com/sites/prakashdolsak/2024/02/06/presidential-elections-and-bidens-gas-export-pause/?sh=62334e411462

He secures approval from climate supporters who consider the pause an important step in combating global warming (primarily due to methane fugitive emissions associated with gas liquefaction and transportation). But he provokes the anger of fossil fuel supporters who view the pause to be destroying jobs and undermining energy security. The gas export pause means that Biden assessed the electoral payoffs of appealing to climate voters to be higher than vote losses in fossil fuel communities and some blue-collar voters.

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The good thing about this is that it keeps more US gas at home and REDUCES demand which adds to the current glut in supply/storage.

However, producers WILL cut back on the rig count and production. THEY WILL because thats what they have always done when supply outstrips demand in order to force a new balance in demand/supply that supports HIGHER PRICES and more reward.

So the lower prices will be somewhat temporary. Longer term, there are many items that will influence the demand/supply dynamics/fundamentals.

Let me illustrate this dynamic below.

During the COVID pandemic in 2020, Industrial demand for natural gas dried up and the surplus in storage was huge, resulting in prices crashing below $2. Note what producers did to cut back on supplies to force prices higher to make their investments profitable.

It not only worked but it backfired onto consumers when US demand came roaring back but supplies were unable to match it. In addition, exports soared higher, especially from Biden's war in Ukraine, so in 2022, just 2 years after historically low prices below $2, the price of natural gas more than quadrupled at the end of the Summer in 2022.

The cure for high prices? High prices!! Producers responded to the financial incentive by gushing out record supplies in the Fall/Winter of 2022/23 that included an increase in the rig count and by utilizing supplies  from wells already tapped but not producing gas BEFORE the price hit $9.

That new supply caused ng in storage to increase by the greatest amount vs the previous year and the historical average in history by a very wide margin. You can see the price crash the past 18 months.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_rotary_rigs

Below, is a look back 30 years.  After the 1990's, prices below $2 don't last long. Horizontal fracking of shale gas, starting  15 years ago has also put a lid on the upside as described above because it can unleash massive new production that starts gushing in just months later, when the past would take many times longer than that(offshore drilling/production).