Friday, July 7th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.612, just above Thursday’s closing price of $2.609. Trending higher leading up to the weekly storage publication, prices peaked at an intraday high of $2.675 at 10:15AM. Dropping sharply as the bullish estimate report hit the wire, traders then digested the reclassification of working gas and the contract recovered. Crossing midday at $2.614, prices fell to the intraday low of $2.540 at 1:05PM. August closed lower on Friday at $2.582; down nearly 8% on the week.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Friday showed a 72 BCF injection to storage for the week ended June 30 – above the market estimate of 66 BCF. A reclassification of working gas to base gas increased working gas stocks by 4 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,877 BCF; 25.0% above this time last year and 14.6% above the five-year average.
As of 9:30AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down 58 cents; Natural Gas was up 7 cents; Heating Oil was down 1 cent; and Gasoline was down 2 cents.
For access to Sprague’s full Natural Gas Market Watch Report including commentary not posted here, please send your request to natgas@spragueenergy.com or call 1-855-466-2842.