DJ Natural Gas Futures Choppy as Outlook Little Changed
By Christian Berthelsen
Natural gas futures chopped around the break-even point on Monday as weather forecasts remained largely unchanged,
leaving projections for gas-fired heating and cooling demand in place.
Front-month November natural gas futures were up 0.3 cent, or 0.1%, at $3.8620 a million British thermal units on the
New York Mercantile Exchange.
Meteorologists are predicting neutral to above-normal temperatures over much of the U.S. through late October, in a
delayed onset to heating season that is expected to crimp demand and allow for additional gas to be added to stored
supplies for winter.
The U.S. is still rebuilding natural gas inventories depleted by the harsh prior winter, and robust production during
the spring and summer has rebuilt most of the stockpiles. Total inventories stood at 3.2 trillion cubic feet as of last
week, 10.5% below average, but with at least three more additions to storage expected before the start of heating
season analysts expect supplies to reach adequate levels.
"The prospect of ongoing whopping injections and broadly neutral conditions has (natural gas) looking rather neutral
too," Schneider Electric analyst Matt Smith said in a note.
In the physical market, cash prices for next-day delivery of natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub last traded at
$3.8750/mmBtu, within Friday's trading range of $3.84-$3.90. Prices at the Transco Z6 hub in New York traded in a
bid-offer spread of $1.70-$2.20, compared with Friday's range of $1.75-$1.86.
Write to Christian Berthelsen at christian.berthelsen@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 13, 2014 09:32 ET (13:32 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
101314 13:32 -- GMT
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