Natural Gas Overview: Price Movements Explained

Thursday, May 15^th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.439, $0.053 cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $3.492. Ascending to an intraday high of $3.494 ahead of the weekly storage publication, prices retreated as the seasonally bearish injection hit the wire. Seeking direction in the following hours, the contract ultimately withdrew to the intraday low of $3.361 ahead of 2:30PM. June closed lower on Thursday at $3.362.

The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday posted a 110 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 9 – in line with the market estimate of a 109 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,255 BCF; 14.3% below this time last year and 2.6% above the five-year average.

As of 7:00AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up $0.300; Natural Gas was down $0.024; Heating Oil was down $0.012; and Gasoline was up $0.003.

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