Natural Gas Prices and Market Fundamentals Explained

Friday, July 25^th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.077, $0.017 below Thursday’s closing price of $3.094. Marking the intraday low of $3.075 within minutes of 9:00AM, market fundamentals remained largely unchanged as storage levels remain stout, and traders have already priced in the late-July cooling demand. Tagging the intraday high of $3.145 at 10:30AM, the contract hovered near the $3.100 level throughout the afternoon. August closed higher on Friday at $3.110; down 12.8% on the week.

The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday posted a 23 BCF injection to storage for the week ended July 18 – below the market estimate of a 31 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,075 BCF; 4.7% below this time last year and 5.9% above the five-year average.

As of 6:05AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up $0.580; Natural Gas was down $0.060; Heating Oil was up $0.006; and Gasoline was up $0.017.

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