Friday, August 26th saw the September NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $9.503, thirteen above Thursday’s closing price $9.375. Ascending to its daily zenith of $9.668 shortly after 9:30AM, the contract then began a gradual descent that would find it’s bottom at the intraday low of $9.186 near 2:00PM. Following a brief tick above the ten-dollar mark earlier in the week, the new of the Freeport LNG facility pushing back it’s restart date, stranding 2BCF/day, brought futures back down to reality to close week. September closed lower on Friday at $9.296; down less than 1% on the week.
The more-actively traded October contract closed lower on Friday at $9.269.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 60 BCF injection to storage for the week ended August 19 – in line with the market estimate of 58 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,579 BCF; 9.4% below this time last year and 12.0% below the five-year average.
As of 6:50AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 56 cents; Natural Gas was up 15 cents; Heating Oil was down five cents; and Gasoline was down four cents.
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