DJ Natural Gas Rally Resumes on Strong Demand and Technical Trading
(Adds price table)
By Timothy Puko
Natural gas rose to nearly a three-month high closing price as hopes for strong demand and traders who trade based on
charts keep pushing a steady rally.
Natural gas for June delivery settled up 3.8 cents, or 1.3%, at $2.935 a million British thermal units on the New
York Mercantile Exchange. It is the highest closing price since Feb. 20.
Prices are now up about 18% since they closed at a 2 1/2-year low on April 27. If it closes above $2.988/mmBtu in the
coming days, natural gas would enter bull market territory, ending a bear run that started in December.
Many are struggling to explain the move, chalking it up to a collection of small factors. Warm weather has raised
expectations that power plants will burn more gas as customers turn on their air conditioners. Recent outages at
nuclear power plants in New York and New Jersey have raised similar expectations.
A slew of traders are seeking deals for full-calendar year futures going out to 2020, said Michael Doyle, a broker at
Eclipse International Inc. in New York. But several traders said real buying interest is relatively light and the rally
may just be from money managers easing out of a flood of bearish bets from earlier this spring.
"All these little factors add up," said Frank Clements, co-owner of Meridian Energy Brokers Inc. "It's like a
baseball game with four or five guys hitting singles and then scoring two runs. There are no home runs, but you're
still scoring."
Many traders say they are still bearish and don't think this run will last. Last week's storage addition is likely to
be the largest of the year and several forecasters expect it to be among the five largest since the federal government
began keeping records in 1994. Storage levels likely grew by 117 billion cubic feet, according to the average of 18
forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
"It's too early for a bull market now," said John Woods, president of JJ Woods Associates and a Nymex trader. "Nobody
is going to come into this market and buy $3 gas this early" before summer.
FUTURES SETTLEMENT NET CHANGE
Nymex June $2.935 3.8c
Nymex July $2.984 3.9c
Nymex August $3.007 3.8c
CASH HUB RANGE PREVIOUS SESSION
El Paso Perm $2.6325-$2.70 $2.63-$2.68
El Paso SJ $2.62-$2.6525 $2.635-$2.665
Henry Hub $2.84-$2.9175 $2.84-$2.87
Katy $2.79-$2.82 $2.815-$2.83
SoCal $2.77-$2.80 $2.79-$2.81
Tex East M3 $1.57-$1.65 $1.64-$1.80
Transco 65 $2.8425-$2.865 $2.85-$2.905
Transco Z6 $2.80-$2.87 $2.87-$2.94
Waha $2.70-$2.725 $2.70-$2.72
Write to Timothy Puko at timothy.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 13, 2015 16:31 ET (20:31 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
051315 20:31 -- GMT
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