Thursday, May 25th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.382, two cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $2.398. Trading evenly along $2.385 leading up to the weekly storage publication, prices briefly jumped to the intraday high of $2.410 as the report hit the wire at 10:30AM. Losing momentum soon thereafter, despite the injection landing on the bullish side of expectations, the contract pulled back as the session drew on due to below-average forecasted cooling demand. June closed lower on Thursday at $2.307.
In similar fashion, the July closed nine cents lower at $2.476.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 96 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 19 – in line with the market estimate of 94 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,336 BCF; 29.3% above this time last year and 17.0% above the five-year average.
As of 7:00AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 56 cents; Natural Gas was down five cents; Heating Oil was up two cents; and Gasoline was up two 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.