Thursday, December 7th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.554, nearly two cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $2.569. Trading modestly higher to reach $2.575 ahead of the weekly storage publication, prices surged to the intraday high of $2.621 as the bullish report hit the wire. Pulling back in the following minutes to record the intraday low of $2.522 at 11:00AM, the contract posted a steady recovery into the afternoon. Markets were still digesting the news of a delay in the opening of an LNG train, effectively slowing the rate of LNG export growth. Reclaiming the $2.600 level near 2:00PM, January closed higher on Thursday at $2.585.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 117 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended December 1 – above the market estimate of a 109 BCF withdrawal. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,719 BCF; 7.3% above this time last year and 6.7% above the five-year average.
As of 6:15AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up $1.22; Natural Gas was up two cents; Heating Oil was up five cents; and Gasoline was up four cents.
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