US natural gas futures hit 6-week high on cold, soaring global prices

US natural gas futures on Tuesday rose to a six-week high on forecasts for colder weather in late January than previously expected.

Traders also noted that soaring gas prices around the world were keeping demand for US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports near record highs.

Front-month gas futures rose 10.5 cents, or 3.8%, to $2.852 per million British thermal units at 9:24 a.m. EST (1424 GMT), putting the contract on track for its highest close since Dec. 1.

That pushed the premium of the front-month over the second-month to its highest since January 2019.

At-the-money implied volatility, a determinant of an option's premium, meanwhile, fell to 50.8% on Monday, its lowest since August.

Although the latest forecasts call for colder weather in late January, meteorologists still expect next week to be milder than this week. Data provider Refinitiv projected that milder weather will cause average gas demand, including exports, to fall from 128.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) this week to 125.1 bcfd next week.

Even though a liquefaction train may have shut at Cheniere Energy Inc's Corpus Christi plant in Texas, the amount of gas flowing to US LNG export plants averaged 10.7 bcfd so far in January, matching December's record.

That all-time LNG export high came as gas futures soared to a record high in Asia and rose to their highest since October 2018 in Europe due to extreme cold in both regions, numerous LNG supply issues, a scarcity of available ships and delays at the Panama Canal.

Traders, however, noted US LNG exports cannot rise much more until new units enter service in the second half of 2022 since feedgas to the LNG plants was already over their 10.5-bcfd export capacity. LNG plants can pull in a little more gas than they can export since they use some of the fuel to run the facility.