US natural gas futures on Friday posted their biggest weekly percentage decline since January of around 11 percent on forecasts mild weather and light heating demand would continue through mid-November. After posting bigger losses all week, front-month gas futures slipped just 0.2 cents, or 0.1 percent, on Friday to settle at $2.767 per million British thermal units. That was its fifth down day in a row.
Even though the latest forecast predicted less mild weather over the next two weeks, temperatures were expected to remain at above-normal levels over the next two weeks, keeping heating demand lighter than normal and allowing utilities to continue pumping gas into stockpiles that are already at record high levels. Analysts projected inventory levels would approach 4.1 tcf this month, topping the all-time high of 4.009 tcf set in November 2015. Those stockpiles, however, will not remain at record levels for long since some of the latest forecasts call for December to be colder than normal, which should boost heating demand. Thomson Reuters data forecast the weather would turn colder than normal in December before shifting to warmer than normal in January and February.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.