Dow Jones - Natural Gas Steady As Strong Demand Balanced Out By Soft Expectations

DJ Natural Gas Steady as Strong Demand Balanced Out by Soft Expectations

   By Timothy Puko


  Natural gas is holding close to unchanged Friday as strong demand from recent weeks is tempered by expectations that
the peak of summer is passing.

  Natural gas futures for September delivery recently rose 0.2 cent, or 0.1%, to $2.815 a million British thermal units
on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Trading has been limited to a 4.1-cent range for the day and prices are holding to
the middle of a 31-cent range they have been stuck in for nearly two months.

  Prices have barely moved because of a balance between bulls and bears in the market, analysts said. Bulls got support
yesterday from new stockpile data showing the lowest summer addition in nearly three years. But storage levels are
still healthy, more than 2% above their five-year average, and hot weather on the horizon likely isn't extreme enough
to keep demand as strong as it has been, analysts said.

  The storage data show that the market was more than one billion cubic feet a day undersupplied, according to
calculations from, energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. That is a rarity in days when the shale-drilling
boom has flooded the market with supply.

  But the surge in consumption from gas-power plants "appears unsustainable," Jim Ritterbusch, president of
energy-advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates said in a note. There are few days left for the peak of summer demand for
gas-fired power to fuel air conditioners, Tudor, Pickering analysts said.

  "We expect a quiet finish to this week's trade," Mr. Ritterbusch said. "At the end of the day, this market still
looks like a standoff between the bulls and the bears."

  Physical gas for next-day delivery at the Henry Hub in Louisiana last traded at $2.84/mmBtu, compared with Thursday's
range of $2.755-$2.77. Cash prices at the Transco Z6 hub in New York last traded at $1.44/mmBtu, compared with
Thursday's range of $1.40-$1.46.


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


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  (END) Dow Jones Newswires

  August 07, 2015 09:53 ET (13:53 GMT)

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

080715 13:53 -- GMT
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