Daily Market Update September 5, 2017
Early Morning Update
The Oct17 natural gas contract is trading down $0.10 at $2.97. Oct17 crude is up $0.81 at $48.10.
Summary
The October natural gas contract increased by three cents on Friday, settling at $3.07. Thursday was the first day since late July that the prompt month had eclipsed $3.00, and the October contract had gained more than 13 cents in the final two trading days last week. The new week brings cooler midterm weather updates for the East and Midwest, so lower temperature-related demand may provide some downside pressure. A slightly warmer-than-normal outlook in the longer term forecast is tempered by the movement into fall, as lower high temperatures do not necessarily dictate higher cooling demand. Production shut-in in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Harvey has slowly decreased to only 0.26 Bcf/day, about 8% of the Southeast’s capacity for production. As Texas is still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, we are now tracking Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm moving quickly toward the Leeward Islands, where it is expected to pass early Wednesday. It will move to the Bahamas by Saturday, but there is little agreement on a path after that, with potential landfall locations spanning from Florida to North Carolina.