There’s not much on the record books to compare this week. Spot gas prices in some areas ballooned to the thousands and one of the biggest states in the
Polar Plunge Fuels Dollar-Plus Gains for Northeast Weekly Natural Gas Prices
Buoyed by expectations for the lowest temperatures of the winter season so far, natural gas spot prices rocketed sharply higher during the first week of February. The Northeast’s reputation for extreme volatility was on full display as prices soared beyond $15.000 in some locations. NGI Weekly Spot Gas National Avg. surged 47.5 cents to $3.570.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said the low pressure system tracking toward the East Coast could lead to snow from the southern Appalachians to the Mid-Atlantic. There is still some uncertainty as to the storm’s exact track and location, but the latest forecast calls for snow, falling heavily at times, from the Washington, DC/Baltimore metro areas up the I-95 corridor to southern New England on Sunday.
Weekly Natural Gas Prices Soar Amid Winter’s Worst Freeze
Weekly natural gas cash prices skyrocketed during a stretch of intense cold across much of the northern United States that spurred robust heating demand.
NGI’s Weekly Spot Gas National Avg. for the Jan. 25-28 trading period spiked 48.5 cents to $3.095, lifted by a weeklong rally. The trading week consisted of four trading days for January gas delivery, ending Thursday, because Friday’s trading was for gas delivered on Monday, Feb. 1.
Prices in the Northeast, where low temperatures hovered in the single digits much of the week, led the charge.
As the four-day trading week closed Thursday, Algonquin Citygate was up $3.720 to $7.815, while PNGTS was ahead $2.230 to $7.445 and Tenn Zone 6 200L was up $3.650 to $7.435.
The natural gas storage report from the EIA for the week ending January 15th indicated that the amount of natural gas held in underground storage in the US fell by 187 billion cubic feet to 3,009 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our gas supplies just 36 billion cubic feet, or 1.2% higher than the 3,045 billion cubic feet that were in storage on January 15th of last year, but still 198 billion cubic feet, or 7.0% above the five-year average of 2,811 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been in storage as of the 15th of January in recent years..the 187 billion cubic feet that were drawn out of US natural gas storage this week was 10 billion cubic feet more than the average forecast of a 177 billion cubic foot withdrawal from an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts, and way more than the 97 billion cubic foot withdrawal from natural gas storage seen during the corresponding week of a year earlier, as well as more than the average withdrawal of 167 billion cub