Daily Market Update September 20, 2019
Early Morning Update
The Oct19 natural gas contract is trading up $0.02 at $2.56. The Oct19 crude oil contract is up $0.43 at $58.56.
Summary
The market saw a nice decline in prices yesterday as the prompt month fell nearly 10 cents to close at $2.538. The 12 month strip also fell $.056 as the decline in prices was felt into 2020. Past 2020 though, the market was basically unchanged. The EIA did release a bearish storage report showing an injection of 84 Bcf. The consensus of estimates called for a build of 76 Bcf into storage so this report was a bit of a surprise and sent the market lower.
Other fundamentals appear less bearish as weather forecasts continue to show above average temperatures for much of the country. Air-conditioning load looks set to hang around through the first week of October. Despite that, storage estimates for the next three weeks are above the 5-year average and should contribute to a reduction in the deficit. Estimates for storage totals after the next three injections call for 3.383 Bcf, a mere 41 bcf behind the 5-year average if those estimates are realized.