For the weather affecting natural gas residential heating demand and prices, go here:
From Natural Gas Intelligence:
Market Sends February Natural Gas Lower at Open as Cold Temps Slowly Approach
8:53 AM
February natural gas early Monday struggled to hold onto recent gains as long-range weather models were slow to show sustained cold moving into the country. The Nymex February gas futures contract was trading at $2.965, down 7.9 cents, just before 9 a.m. ET.
EIA storage report from last Friday
-20 BCF..........bearish.
By WxFollower - Jan. 4, 2019, 8:39 p.m.
No doubt this was very bearish, but the holiday week related slowdown may have been underestimated.
| Working gas in underground storage, Lower 48 states Summary textCSVJSN | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historical Comparisons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stocks billion cubic feet (Bcf) | Year ago (12/28/17) | 5-year average (2013-17) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Region | 12/28/18 | 12/21/18 | net change | implied flow | Bcf | % change | Bcf | % change | |||||||||||||||||
| East | 661 | 676 | -15 | -15 | 746 | -11.4 | 764 | -13.5 | |||||||||||||||||
| Midwest | 798 | 818 | -20 | -20 | 884 | -9.7 | 892 | -10.5 | |||||||||||||||||
| Mountain | 147 | 150 | -3 | -3 | 185 | -20.5 | 184 | -20.1 | |||||||||||||||||
| Pacific | 220 | 223 | -3 | -3 | 270 | -18.5 | 296 | -25.7 | |||||||||||||||||
| South Central | 878 | 858 | 20 | 20 | 1,070 | -17.9 | 1,127 | -22.1 | |||||||||||||||||
| Salt | 296 | 274 | 22 | 22 | 305 | -3.0 | 323 | -8.4 | |||||||||||||||||
| Nonsalt | 582 | 584 | -2 | -2 | 766 | -24.0 | 804 | -27.6 | |||||||||||||||||
| Total | 2,705 | 2,725 | -20 | -20 | 3,155 | -14.3 | 3,265 | -17.2 | |||||||||||||||||
Storage is still well below the previous 5 year range and last year but has been closing the gap fast recently, now -550 bcf vs last year.
These were the extraordinarily mild temperatures for the 7 day period in this last EIA report:
These were the temperatures during the 7 day period for this Thursday's EIA report...........extreme warmth in the Southeast/East.
It is refreshing to me to see the market not being panicked anymore with the extra high spec volumes making it go so wacky up, down, up, etc. There's still plenty of volatility for opportunities/risks, but not the bat-shoot crazy volatility of Nov and Dec that was ridiculously out of control thanks largely to big entities and their attendant algos. It was plain insane. Hopefully that craziness stays away.
Agree Larry!
It was the most volatile ever.
Margin requirements were raised to something like 3 times where they were early in the Fall.
From Natural Gas Intelligence, closing comments at the end of Monday's trading:
"A natural gas futures market left waiting for convincing signs of a return to more impressive winter heating demand sold off Monday. In the spot market, recent weakness continued as forecasters noted comfortable conditions for much of the Lower 48 to start the work week; the NGI Spot Gas National Avg. slid 3.5 cents to $2.665/MMBtu.
Futures bulls had managed to reclaim the $3 mark on Friday but couldn’t hold it for long. The February Nymex contract gapped lower over the weekend and, after climbing as high as $2.994 just before lunchtime on the East Coast Monday, eventually settled at $2.944, off 10.0 cents from Friday. The March contract settled 5.8 cents lower at $2.847.
Monday’s selling came despite some colder trends popping up in recent weather data, according to NatGasWeather. The forecaster noted systems expected to push into the East beginning Thursday through Jan. 15."
The 0z GFS and Canadian model products came out a bit colder which is supporting NG a bit here.
The European model 762 hour update had a couple of very frigid blasts late this month into early February which help set up the initial support in early evening trading.
Heres the Euro model starting on January 24th, every 24 hours......ending February 8th. These are 850 mb temp maps which is around 1 mile above the surface/ground and is in Celcius/Centigrade.
Some bitter cold air makes it south of the border for numerous days. -20 Deg C isotherm manages to get to the N.TN border on one occassion, with a -30 Deg C isotherm showing up in northern border states on several days.