Dow Jones - Natural Gas Keeps Rising On Warm Weather Forecasts

DJ Natural Gas Keeps Rising on Warm-Weather Forecasts


By Timothy Puko


  Natural gas is rising Wednesday morning as weather reports continue to show large patches of above-normal
temperatures for the second half of July.

  Natural gas for August delivery is up 5.2 cents, or 1.8%, at $2.892 a million British thermal units on the New York
Mercantile Exchange. Prices haven't settled above $2.90 since May, though they are up 7.7% since June 8 largely on hot
forecasts.

  Demand for gas rises as summer heat gets people turn on air-conditioners and consume more gas-fired power. Recent
forecasts are predicting above-normal temperatures spreading in the next two weeks across large parts of the country,
especially concentrated in the Southeast. Forecasts from MDA Weather Services in Maryland show the most heat, with
temperatures 1-to-5-degrees- Fahrenheit-above normal for nearly the entire country from July 25 to 29.

  The hot forecasts have pushed up prices in three of the last four sessions and pushed prices to nearly a one-month
intraday high on Tuesday. They did, however, retreat later that day in part because the hot temperatures aren't extreme
enough and may not last long enough to outweigh near-record gas production, analysts and traders said.

  "We always do this. We get really excited about the heat--until there isn't any," said Teri Viswanath, a natural-gas
strategist at BNP Paribas SA in New York.

  The 90-day forecast WeatherBELL Analytics LLC issued Wednesday suggested that the abnormal heat isn't likely to last.
It showed most of the country with normal or 1-degree-below-normal temperatures. Slightly above-normal temperatures are
likely to hug the East Coast and cover parts of the west, and temperatures 3 degrees above normal could hit Washington
and Oregon, according to WeatherBELL.

  Physical gas for next-day delivery at the Henry Hub in Louisiana last traded at $2.90/mmBtu, compared with Tuesday's
range of $2.89-$2.9675. Cash prices at the Transco Z6 hub in New York last traded at $1.56/mmBtu, compared with
Tuesday's range of $1.80 to $2.10.


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

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  (END) Dow Jones Newswires

  July 15, 2015 10:06 ET (14:06 GMT)

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

071515 14:06 -- GMT
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