DJ Natural Gas Prices Continue Slump
By Nicole Friedman
NEW YORK--Natural gas prices fell to fresh 14-year lows Tuesday as concerns about weak demand continued to weigh
on the market.
Futures for January delivery recently traded down 5.7 cents, or 3%, to $1.837 a million British thermal units, the
lowest intraday price since September 2001.
Warm weather in the U.S. caused by the El Ni??o weather phenomenon has sharply limited demand for the heating
fuel this year. The natural-gas market is oversupplied, and some traders and analysts say the industry could run out of
storage space for gas by mid-2016.
"There's a lot of negative sentiment out there right now," said Jim Calhoun, trader at Twin Eagle Resource
Management in Houston. "The longer this warm winter goes on, the more bullets we have to shoot at any cold temperatures
that come our way."
Weather forecasts released Tuesday showed continued above-average temperatures for the next two weeks.
"The writing is on the wall for the continuation of highly anomalous warm weather over the lower 48 during late
December, which will continue to cripple heating demand," said forecaster WSI Corp. in a note. "There's a strong chance
that December 2015 may end up as the warmest month on record for the eastern two thirds [of the U.S.], with
near-record-low heating demand not out of the question."
Physical gas for next-day delivery at the Henry Hub in Louisiana last traded at $1.62/mmBtu, compared with
Monday's range of $1.64-$1.745.
Cash prices at the Transco Z6 hub in New York last traded at $1.70/mmBtu, compared with Monday's range of
$1.35-$1.43.
Write to Nicole Friedman at nicole.friedman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 15, 2015 10:34 ET (15:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
121515 15:34 -- GMT
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