NEW YORK: US natural gas futures edged up about 1percent on Thursday on forecasts for cooler, more near-normal weather and higher demand over the next two weeks than previously expected, and a slight decline in daily output.
That price increase also came ahead of the release of a federal storage report expected to show that energy firms injected a below-normal 77 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended October 3.
That compares with an increase of 78 bcf during the same week last year and an average build of 94 bcf over the past five years.
Front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 3.2 cents, or 1.0percent, to USD3.365 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) by 8:44 a.m. EDT (1244 GMT). In the cash market, average prices at the Waha Hub in the Permian Shale in West Texas fell back into negative territory on Wednesday for the 11th time in the last 12 days as ongoing pipeline maintenance, like work on Kinder Morgan’s Permian Highway, trapped gas in the nation’s biggest oil-producing basin.
That was the 20th time Waha prices have dropped below zero so far this year and compares with an average of USD1.40 per mmBtu so far in 2025, 77 cents in 2024, and USD2.91 over the previous five years (2019-2023).
Waha first averaged below zero in 2019. It happened 17 times in 2019, six times in 2020, once in 2023, and a record 49 times in 2024.
In the tropics, the US National Hurricane Center projected Tropical Storm Jerry would strengthen into a hurricane on Friday after it passes the northern Caribbean Islands and then turns northeast toward the open Atlantic Ocean by early next week. Jerry is not expected to hit the US mainland over the next week.
Financial firm LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 states fell to 106.3 billion cubic feet per day so far in October, down from 107.4 bcfd in September and a record monthly high of 108.0 bcfd in August.
On a daily basis, output was on track to drop to a preliminary three-month low of 104.9 bcfd on Thursday. Preliminary data, however, is often revised later in the day. Thursday’s projected daily output was higher than forecast on Wednesday and compares with a daily record high of 109.2 bcfd on July 28.
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