Natural Gas Prices Rise Amid Conflicting Forecasts

Friday, March 28^th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.939, $0.052 cents below Wednesday’s closing price $3.925. Slipping to an intraday low of $3.870 ahead of 10:25AM, prices then mounted a steady rally that would span the session. Despite conflicting weather forecasts, with the American model leaning bearish, the contract rose to the intraday high of $4.086 at 2:20PM. May closed higher on Friday at $4.065; up 2% on the week.

The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday posted a 37 BCF injection to storage for the week ended March 21 – above the market estimate of a 32 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 1,744 BCF; 24.2% below this time last year and 6.5% below the five-year average.

As of 6:35AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up $0.200; Natural Gas was up $0.173; Heating Oil was up $0.007; and Gasoline was up $0.009.

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