Thursday, February 25th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.804, a penny above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.795. Falling to an intraday low of $2.766 by 9:30AM, the contract was trading near $2.805 ahead of the weekly storage publication. Ascending to an intraday high of $2.830 as the report hit the wire at 10:30AM, prices soon returned to the $2.800 level. Despite the behemoth storage withdrawal, we’re now trading the April contract, and as weather forecasts remain bearish, the news of storage levels falling below the five-year average just wasn’t enough to support a rally. April closed lower on Thursday at $2.777.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 338 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended February 19th – above the market estimate expectation of 280 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 1,943 BCF; 13.3% below this time last year and 7.7% below the five-year average.
As of 7:10AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $1.27; Natural Gas was down five cents; Heating Oil was down four cents; and Gasoline was down two cents.
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