Thursday, May 13th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.949, two cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $2.969. Marking an intraday low of $2.937 within minutes of the opening bell, the contract traded sideways near $2.945 through 10:00AM. Gaining two cents in the thirty minutes leading up to the storage report, prices spiked to an intraday high of $2.998 as the publication hit the wire. Trading within a narrow band near $2.975 for the balance of the day, June closed slightly higher at $2.973.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 71 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 7th – in line with the market estimate of 73 BCF. Please note, a reclassification of work gas to base gas in the South Central region decreased working gas stocks by four BCF, making the implied net change +75 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,029 BCF; 15.7% below this time last year and 3.4% below the five-year average.
As of 6:50AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 62 cents; Natural Gas was up two cents; Heating Oil was up one cent; and Gasoline was up one cent.
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