By Timothy Puko
Prices of natural gas futures retreated on Tuesday, as weather forecasts call for mild summer temperatures across
large parts of the country.
Long-term forecasts from both Commodity Weather Group LLC and WeatherBELL Analytics LLC show repeated cool fronts
sweeping over parts of the Rockies, the Midwest and the East Coast for at least the next six weeks. Commodity Weather
Group made its summer outlook public on Tuesday, a day after sending it to clients, showing a forecast adjustment for
August and September that took most of the eastern states and the large parts of the Rockies from normal temperatures
to below-average temperatures.
Limited hot weather makes people less likely to use air conditioners and ramp up demand for gas-fired power.
Forecasts for cool weather had already sent prices down sharply on Monday. "It's just more concern that the (hot)
weather may not materialize in July," said Teri Viswanath, a natural- gas strategist at BNP Paribas SA in New York.
Prices for the front-month July contract settled down 0.7 cents, or 0.3%, to $2.726 a million British thermal unit on
the New York Mercantile Exchange. Four losing sessions out of five have sunk gas prices to their lowest settlement in
more than two weeks.
The retreat started from a high point on Tuesday, as prices climbed in early morning trading. It appeared the market
may have been getting a boost from slowing output. The amount of gas flowing through pipelines early on Tuesday
suggested production was down 2% from a surge over the weekend, according to data provider PointLogic Energy. Another
data provider, Genscape Inc., also reported that outages and construction delays on major pipelines in Pennsylvania,
one of the country's busiest shale-gas production areas, would restrict gas shipments through next week.
Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 23, 2015 15:07 ET (19:07 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
062315 19:07 -- GMT
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