US natgas falls on lower cooling demand, LNG exports

US natural gas futures fell on Tuesday as forecasts for cooler weather decreased demand for air conditioning and as liquefied natural gas exports dropped because of recent storms.

Front-month gas futures fell 6.4 cents, or 2.4%, to $2.566 per million British thermal units by 9:57 a.m. EDT (1357 GMT).

"Hurricane Laura took out a lot of demand from the Texas-Louisiana border right through the center of the country and it brought some cooler weather behind it," said Robert DiDona of Energy Ventures Analysis.

Refinitiv data indicated 147 cooling degree days (CDDs) in the Lower 48 states over the next two weeks, declining from 151 CDDs in the prior day. CDDs measure the number of degrees a day's average temperature is above 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) and are used to estimate demand to cool homes and businesses.

Demand in the Lower 48 states is expected to decline as the weather turns cooler, falling from 85.3 bcfd this week to 83.3 bcfd in the next, according to Refinitiv.

Damage to power lines and communications outages from the storm have hurt offshore oil and gas production, with natural gas down by 41%, or 1.12 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd), the US Department of Interior reported on Monday.

An offshore natural gas pipeline that serves four major US Gulf of Mexico production platforms also remained out of commission, Enbridge Inc said.

However, Cheniere Energy, the country's top LNG exporter, and Sempra LNG are expected to resume operations after no major damage was found following Hurricane Laura.

US output rose to 87.9 bcfd on Monday as many wells in the Gulf resumed operations after Laura, preliminary data from Refinitiv showed.