Dow Jones Natural Gas - End of Day Commentary

DJ Natural Gas Makes Small Gains on Cold Weather Forecasts


   By Timothy Puko


  Natural gas made small gains for March delivery as cold weather forecasts raised expectations for late-winter heating
demand.

  The front-month March contract settled up 2.3 cents, or 0.8%, at $2.902 a million British thermal units on the New
York Mercantile Exchange. The more actively traded April contract settled down 0.4 cent, or 0.1%, at $2.889/mmBtu.
March options expired at close and the futures contract expires at Wednesday's close.

  Weather forecasts are showing patches of extreme cold for the rest of the month, and most of the country still
feeling far-below-normal temperatures through the first week of March. Half of U.S. homes use natural gas for heat, so
the cold is raising expectations for the demand.

  However, prices for the year are still likely to stay anchored at around $3/mmBtu, and could even drop in the short
term, Morgan Stanley said in a note Tuesday. Stockpiles, which recently surpassed their five-year average levels, are
just too healthy for traders to strongly bid up prices, analysts said.

  "The market would tend to want to take this thing lower, but the market's been saved...by the relative strength in
the weather forecast," said Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA Inc. "I don't think
the market is capable of blasting its way to $3.50 even with the weather on our hands."


  Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com


Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwireshttp://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires">http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
>

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires

  February 24, 2015 14:52 ET (19:52 GMT)

  Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

022415 19:52 -- GMT
------