NEW YORK: US natural gas futures climbed about 2% on Tuesday on a daily output and forecasts for a few cold days next week that will boost heating demand.
That price increase came despite record production over the past few days and a mostly mild weather outlook through early November.
Front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 4.5 cents, or 1.5%, to settle at $2.971 per million British thermal units (mmBtu).
A lack of big price moves in recent weeks has cut historic or actual 30-day close-to-close futures volatility to 49.1%, the lowest since April 2022.
Historic daily volatility hit a record high of 177.7% in February 2022 and a record low of 7.3% in June 1991. Historic volatility has averaged 74.6% so far this year, versus a record high of 92.8% in 2022 and a five-year (2018-2022) average of 57.9%.
In the spot market, gas prices at the Waha hub in the Permian basin in West Texas fell about 92% to around 12 cents per mmBtu for Tuesday, their lowest since early May when prices briefly turned negative.
Lower spot or next-day prices at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana have weighed on the futures market for most of this year. The spot market has traded below front-month futures for 167 out of 202 trading days so far this year, according to data from LSEG.
Next-day prices at the Henry Hub gained about 2% to around $2.65 per mmBtu for Tuesday.
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