Natural Gas Market Update: Key Price Movements

Thursday, May 22^nd saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.307, $0.061 below Wednesday’s closing price of $3.368. Trading sideways along the $3.310 level leading up to the weekly publication, prices jumped to the intraday high of $3.327 as the report hit the wire. Pulling back soon thereafter, another historically large storage build, combined with bearish weather forecasts, sent the contract lower. Marking the intraday low of $3.241 at 11:15AM and 12:45PM, June closed lower on Thursday at $3.253.

The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday posted a 120 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 16 – in line with the market estimate of a 118 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,375 BCF; 12.3% below this time last year and 3.9% above the five-year average.

As of 7:10AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up $0.140; Natural Gas was up $0.016; Heating Oil was down $0.001; and Gasoline was up $0.009.

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