Daily Market Update December 4, 2018

Early Morning Update

The Jan19 natural gas contract is trading up $0.22 at $4.56. The Jan19 crude contract is up $0.75 at $53.70.

Summary

Winter prices took a slide yesterday, as weather forecasts continue to be the primary factor in market movements. The January prompt month dropped 27 cents to $4.339/MMBtu, but, while the 2019 calendar year lost an average of four cents to $3.166, outside of the winter months, April-December 2019 rose an average of three cents. 2020 gained a penny to $2.684, and 2021 went down a cent to $2.632. The forecast for the second half of December shows prevalent warmer-than-normal temperatures stretching across much of the Northeast and Midwest, hopefully slackening heating demand for the last few weeks of the year. However, other sources of demand could prove to make up a potential heating demand dip. Exports to Mexico and LNG sendouts have been creeping higher, with Texas sending more gas to Mexico and the Corpus Christi LNG facility in operation.

Market Update 120418