DJ Natural Gas Retreats on Tepid Demand, Healthy Supply
By Timothy Puko
Natural gas flip-flopped around unchanged Monday as expectations for softening demand and strong supply erased small,
early gains from an optimistic weather forecast.
Natural gas for May delivery settled at unchanged, $2.511 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile
Exchange. The price is nearly a three-year low, going back to June 2012.
Prices initially climbed after several forecasters that predicted slightly below-normal temperatures starting next
week. Half of all U.S. homes use natural gas for heat, making demand highest when temperatures are low.
But a cold late-April adds only marginal demand, said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy-advisory firm Ritterbusch
& Associates. It doesn't bring the extreme temperatures and demand spikes that can come from unseasonably cold winter
weather.
"It feels like mid-August. Nothing to do," said Scott Gettleman, an independent trader in New York.
There are so many high-producing gas wells in the Appalachian basin that production is likely to keep increasing and
sending prices to even lower points into the summer, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. said in a note to clients Monday. Gas
producers are also drilling wells but waiting to complete them, which means there are wells ready to come online that
will help keep prices from rebounding until at least late this year, the bank said.
Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 13, 2015 14:59 ET (18:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
041315 18:59 -- GMT
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