US utilities were poised to inject natural gas into storage for the first week this year with a build of 20 billion cubic feet during the week ended March 18, a Reuters survey of energy analysts showed on Wednesday. The estimate compares with draws of 1 bcf in the prior week, 4 bcf a year earlier and a five-year average draw of around 24 bcf. Last week's estimated increase would boost total stocks to 2.498 trillion cubic feet (tcf), more than 1 tcf over the same week a year ago.
That will leave stockpiles on track to end the November-March winter withdrawal season at an all-time high around 2.5 tcf, topping the current end-of-withdrawal season record high of 2.369 tcf set in 2012. Utilities left so much gas in storage this winter because heating demand was light due to the warming effect of the El Nino weather pattern, while drillers continued to produce near record amounts of fuel.
That end-of-season high cuts the amount of gas utilities can add to storage during the upcoming April-October summer injection season to just about 1.8 tcf before the nation's underground storage caverns reach their 4.3 tcf maximum capacity. That is much less than the 2.3 tcf of gas utilities have injected during the summer on average over the past five years. Last week's estimated draw should leave total storage about 69 percent above year-earlier levels and 52 percent higher than the five-year average. Analysts noted utilities likely injected gas into storage last week for the first time this year because heating demand that week was especially light. There were only 75 gas-weighted heating degree days (HDDs) last week, compared with 83 HDDs the previous week, 94 a year earlier and a 30-year norm of around 128.