DJ Natural Gas Futures Keep Rising as Weather Forecasts Grow Colder
By Timothy Puko
NEW YORK-Natural gas traded at its highest price since July early Wednesday as cooling weather forecasts and rising
demand expectations push a rally into its seventh session.
Natural gas for December delivery is up 3.5 cents, or 0.9%, at $4.165 a million British thermal units on the New York
Mercantile Exchange. Prices peaked at $4.315/mmBtu just after 6 a.m. EST, the first time they traded above $4.30 since
July 7.
Weather forecasters have spent the week predicting unseasonably cold weather for everything east of the Rocky
Mountains starting this weekend. Half of all U.S. homes use natural gas as their heating fuel, making the natural gas
market most sensitive to weather. The number of heating degree days -- a measure of how often consumers likely needed
to use gas heat -- is likely to be 20% larger this November than the 10-year average, Citigroup Inc. said in a note
late Tuesday.
Weather forecasts are growing incrementally colder, too. Commodity Weather Group LLC said Wednesday that Chicago, one
of the country's largest markets for gas-fueled heating, will see temperatures dip into the teens as the cold spell
peaks in the middle of next week. Even parts of Texas could see temperatures in the 20s, it added.
December forecasts grew colder this week, too. That has traders worried about a repeat of last year's historic cold,
which led to record demand and prices above $6/mmBtu at the benchmark Henry Hub.
"Another cold winter, combined with lower stocks than last year, could lead to even larger price spikes than last
year," international economics research firm Capital Economics said Wednesday in its commodities update.
Physical gas for next-day delivery at the Henry Hub in Louisiana last traded at $3.80/mmBtu, compared with Tuesday's
range of $3.59-$3.80. Cash prices at the Transco Z6 hub in New York traded in a bid-ask range of $3.51/mmBtu to
$3.60/mmBtu, compared with Tuesday's range of $2.72 to $3.00.
Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 05, 2014 09:48 ET (14:48 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
110514 14:48 -- GMT
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