August natural gas futures were trading lower through midday Friday as competing fundamentals and the contract’s Monday expiry juiced volatility.
Here’s the latest:
- August Nymex natural gas contract down 3.8 cents to $2.003/MMBtu as of 2:31 p.m. ET on its penultimate day as the prompt month
The August contract was trading on either side of even across a nearly 9.0-cent range on Friday.
For bears, Lower 48 production was on track to top 102 Bcf/d for a fifth day on Friday and possibly move higher next week.
“Dismal near-term cooling demand and higher production” have been creating “substantial headwinds for prices,” according to EBW Analytics Group’s Eli Rubin, senior analyst.
“Production readings could rise next week if Northeast gas producers do not actively curtail supply,” Rubin said. Weak weekend demand would undermine cash prices, but over the back half of next week, hotter conditions could boost cooling demand, he said.
- Feed gas flows to U.S. LNG export terminals hover near 13 Bcf/d since Thursday
For bulls, feed gas deliveries to U.S. liquefied natural gas export terminals topped 13 Bcf/d for the first time since former Hurricane Beryl, per revised estimates for Thursday from NGI’s U.S. LNG Export Flow Tracker.
On Friday, feed gas nominations were near 12.9 Bcf/d.
Separately, Freeport LNG Development LP reported to Texas regulators that a power outage at its upstream pretreatment facility forced a shutdown on Wednesday. Notably, Freeport engineers said the terminal was operating all three trains.
Also grabbing attention, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC was expected to ramp up construction after a bankruptcy court on Wednesday approved a deal between the project partners and Zachry Holdings Inc. “Still a lot to be done to ramp construction, but it’s positive,” according to Criterion Research Inc.’s James Bevan, vice president of Research.
- Cash prices mostly lower, with the daily National Avg. down 21.0 cents averaging at $1.535, according to NGI’s MidDay Price Alert
- NGI’s Henry Hub cash price down 1.5 cents to $1.985, SoCal Citygate down 52.0 cents to $2.390
Rains were expected to continue across portions of Texas to Georgia and Florida into next week, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said. Rains also would shift to the northern Plains to the mid-Mississippi Valley. Meanwhile, a heat dome would build over the Plains before it moves east, he said.
