DJ Natural Gas Hits One-Week High on Strong Winter Demand
By Timothy Puko
Natural-gas futures surged to their highest point in a week on unexpectedly strong winter demand.
The front-month April contract settled up 7.2 cents, or 2.6%, at $2.841 a million British thermal units on the New
York Mercantile Exchange. It was the third-straight session of gains and the highest closing price since Feb. 25.
The lingering arctic chill led to the largest ever draw from stockpiles for the second half of February, the U.S.
Energy Information Administration said. Storage levels fell by 228 billion cubic feet in the week ended Feb. 27. That
is 3 bcf more than the 225-bcf consensus average of 15 forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
Half of U.S. homes use natural gas for heating fuel, so single-digit temperatures like those lingering this week are
big drivers for demand. February was the coldest in 30 years, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC.
But weather forecasts are showing above-normal temperatures coming within two weeks. That expectation is weighing on
prices, and even briefly flipped them to losses several times Thursday, before the rally took hold after the EIA
storage data release.
"It's going to be warm next week. Winter's over," said Michael Doyle, a broker at Eclipse International Inc. in New
York. "I wish it would rally, but I'm bearish."
Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 05, 2015 14:51 ET (19:51 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
030515 19:51 -- GMT
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