Daily Market Update July 23, 2018

Early Morning Update

The Aug18 natural gas contract is trading down $0.04 at $2.72. The Aug18 crude contract is up $0.84 at $69.10.

Summary

On Friday, the August 2018 NYMEX natural gas futures price fell by 1.2 cents on the day to settle at $2.757/MMBtu. The prompt month was rangebound throughout the day between $2.754/MMBtu and $2.784. The depression in pricing followed the power burn demand trend, which fell throughout the week with moderating temperatures. This came after a week of record levels for natural gas-fired power generation, and was the main contributor to the lower-than-expected injection into storage last reported Thursday. Over the next couple of weeks, sweltering heat will be concentrated mainly in the western half of the U.S. and Texas. The Mid-con region is expected to see some relief from the warmth, with some much cooler-than-normal temperatures. Mexican and LNG exports also saw declines since the beginning of last week, adding to the bearish factors that pushed the total U.S. demand for natural gas down about 3.2 Bcf/d. U.S. dry production was also down slightly last week, averaging 80.4 Bcf/d, but still at very healthy levels for the summer. 

Market Update 072318