Daily Market Update December 27, 2017

Early Morning Update

The Jan18 natural gas contract is trading up $0.08 at $2.72.  The Feb18 crude contract is down $0.36 at $59.61.

Summary

Yesterday, natural gas prices traded on either side of the line again, in a range from $2.78/MMBtu to $2.643/MMBtu before ultimately losing 2.4 cents to settle at $2.643/MMBtu. The contract was heavily traded in the morning as buyers covered positions ahead of today’s contract expiration and bullish January weather outlooks. No changes were made to the National Weather Service’s 6-10 day outlook yesterday; however, the 8-14 day outlook was revised limiting the probability of extreme cold conditions for the eastern half of the United States and Midwest. Nevertheless, heating related demand is expected to remain strong in the coming weeks and will attribute to large withdrawals from the natural gas storage supply that is already 2% lower than the five year average and 5% lower than last year.

Market Update 122717