DJ Natural Gas Supply Keeps Lid on Prices
By Timothy Puko
Natural gas prices made marginal gains Tuesday as healthy stockpiles put a lid on prices.
The front-month September contract rallied in the afternoon, settling up 0.2 cent, or 0.1%, to $2.844 a million
British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are still firmly locked into the 23-cent range in
which they have settled for two months.
Consumption of gas-powered electricity often rises in the summer as people turn on their air-conditioning units. And
fiercely hot weather in Texas has helped boost demand in recent weeks. The U.S. weather model update at noon showed
more warmth, but is probably inaccurate, WeatherBELL Analytics LLC said in its midday note.
Stockpiles are still 2.2% above their five-year average for this time of year, according to data from the U.S.
Energy Information Administration. Production has stayed at a near-record pace for most of the year, and that lowers
expectations that prices could shoot up from weather-related demand, said Kent Bayazitoglu, analyst at
energy-consulting firm Gelber & Associates in Houston.
Hot weather now is "not enough to make this a bullish summer," he added. "It's a little of too-little-too-late."
Write to Timothy Puko at tim.puko@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 11, 2015 15:18 ET (19:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
081115 19:18 -- GMT
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