Energy

Natural Gas Price Rises Following Small Inventory Gain

Paul Ausick

Published: July 19, 2018 11:00 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 8:46 pm

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday morning that U.S. natural gas stocks increased by 46 billion cubic feet for the week ending July 13.

Analysts were expecting a storage injection of around 56 billion cubic feet. The five-year average for the week is an injection of 62 billion cubic feet, and last year’s storage increase for the week totaled 31 billion cubic feet. Natural gas inventories rose by 51 billion cubic feet in the week ending July 6.

Natural gas futures for August delivery traded flat in advance of the EIA’s report, at around $2.72 per million BTUs, and rose to $2.75 shortly after the report was released.

For the period between July 19 and July 25, NatGasWeather.com once again predicts “high” demand and offers the following outlook:

Comfortable conditions linger across the Midwest and east-central US with highs only in the 70s to lower 80s the next few days. Strong upper high pressure will dominate the rest of the country with highs mainly in the 90s to 110F, hottest from California to Texas for strong regional demand. The next cool shot will arrive into the Midwest this weekend, although hot high pressure will counter and build into the East early next week. Overall, demand will ease to MODERATE the next few days then back to HIGH.

Total U.S. stockpiles rose week over week to 24% below last year’s level and are now 19.2% below the five-year average.

The EIA reported that U.S. working stocks of natural gas totaled about 2.249 trillion cubic feet at the end of last week, around 535 billion below the five-year average of 2.784 trillion cubic feet and 710 billion below last year’s total for the same period. Working gas in storage totaled 2.959 trillion cubic feet for the same period a year ago.

Here’s how share prices of the largest U.S. natural gas producers reacted to the latest report:

• Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the country’s largest producer of natural gas, traded down about 0.1% to $82.14, in a 52-week range of $72.16 to $89.30.
• Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) traded down about 0.2%, at $4.65 in a 52-week range of $2.53 to $5.60.
• EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) traded down about 0.5% to $122.96. The 52-week range is $81.99 to $128.03.

Furthermore, the United States Natural Gas ETF (NYSEARCA: UNG) traded up about 1.3%, at $22.44 in a 52-week range of $20.40 to $27.92.

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