Daily Market Update January 8, 2018

Early Morning Update

The Feb18 natural gas contract is trading up $0.03 at $2.82.  The Feb18 crude contract is up $0.23 at $61.67.

Summary

Despite the extremely cold temperatures across most of the country last week, NYMEX NG prices actually fell last week.  Even more strange was that NG production also fell last week due to wellhead freeze-offs (although that should just be temporary).  As the NYMEX fell though, short-term gas and power in many northeast locations continued to see some of the highest prices since the polar vortex, as demand for NG reached extremely high levels.  The high demand for NG coupled with lower production has led to the highest ever forecasts for a NG draw for this weeks’ storage report.  Estimates are calling for a draw of 335 Bcf, which would set an all-time record.  Early estimates for next week call for a draw of about 200 Bcf, and these two draws are leading to lower end-of-winter storage estimates of roughly 1.3 Tcf.

Market Update 010818