What happened to that natural gas boom that was supposed to continue throughout 2014? We have certainly not had a cool summer universally in the United States, but it also turns out that the summer was not so hot universally that it would eat up all of those natural gas reserves. Cool spells throughout the summer in parts of the Midwest and Northeast have kept utilities from having drastic usage concerns on the aging grid.
Monday brought an 8-month low in natural gas futures prices. August futures ended down 3.4 cents at $3.747 per British Thermal Unit in NYMEX trading. The contract now rolls to the more active September contract, which closed down 2.2 cents at $3.765 per British thermal unit.
Most forecasts show that the temperatures are not expected to get out of hand in key regions. This is likely to help allow natural gas prices not to get out of hand, barring unknown events of course.
United States Natural Gas (NYSEMKT: UNG) was down 0.4% at $20.74 in late trading on Monday afternoon, but the real rub is that its 52-week range is $16.59 to $27.89. That means it is closer to a 52-week low and it also means that the exchange traded product is down 25% from its highs when natural gas demand looked as though it had no end.
We have yet to see the weekly natural gas estimates for EIA Weekly Natural Gas Inventories because we are still three days out from Thursday’s report. Those natural gas inventories rose 90 billion cubic feet last week to 2.219 trillion cubic feet.
Stay tuned.
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