NEW YORK: US natural gas futures held near a seven-month low on Wednesday as the market waited for direction from a federal storage report that is expected to show energy firms added more gas than usual into storage last week as mild weather kept heating demand low.
That lack of price movement occurred despite a bullish decline in daily output in recent days and a 6percent jump in oil futures on worries about the fragile ceasefire in the US war with Iran and bearish forecasts for milder weather and lower demand next week than previously expected.
Front-month gas futures for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 0.7 cent, or 0.3percent, to USD2.717 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), putting the contract on track for its lowest close since August 26 for a second day in a row.
Analysts forecast energy firms added 46 billion cubic feet of gas into storage during the week ended April 3.
That figure compares with increases of 53 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year (2021-2025) average increase of 13 bcf for the period. In the cash market, average prices at the Waha Hub in West Texas remained in negative territory for a record 44 days in a row as pipeline constraints continued to trap gas in the Permian region, the nation’s biggest oil-producing shale basin.
Daily Waha prices first averaged below zero in 2019. They did so 17 times in 2019, six times in 2020, once in 2023, 49 times in 2024, 39 times in 2025, and a record 53 times so far this year.
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