NEW YORK: US natural gas futures edged up about 1% on Thursday on a drop in output over the past few days and forecasts for more demand next week than previously expected.
Gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 3.2 cents, or 1.0%, to $3.358 per million British thermal units at 8:52 a.m. EDT (1252 GMT).
That price increase came ahead of a federal report expected to show that last week’s storage build was much bigger than usual because mild weather kept both heating and cooling demand low.
Analysts projected utilities added 107 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended April 25.
That compares with an increase of 64 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year average build of 58 bcf for this time of year.
If correct, the build would move the amount of gas in storage to near normal levels for this time of year.
Gas stockpiles have been below normal since mid-January as utilities pulled a record 1.013 bcf of gas from storage in January to keep homes and businesses warm during extreme cold this winter.
Some analysts said mild weather and record output so far this spring could allow energy firms to add record amounts of gas into storage in May, breaking the all-time monthly injection high of 494 bcf set in May 2015.
Comments
Comments are closed.