US natural gas futures rose the most this week in almost a year on forecasts that heating demand will shoot up over the next two weeks as the weather turns bitterly cold across much of the country for the first time this winter. Front-month gas futures rose 3.6 cents, or 1.2 percent, on Friday to settle at $3.061 per million British thermal units.
That put the front-month up almost 9 percent this week, the biggest weekly gain since last December. Over the prior two weeks, the contract declined, including 9 percent last week. Gas futures have been on a roller-coaster ride since the November 23 US Thanksgiving Day holiday because of daily changes in weather forecasts.
The contract fell more than 5 percent last Friday, the biggest daily percentage decline since February, rose 4 percent on Monday, jumped 5 percent on Tuesday and climbed more than 3 percent on Wednesday, before falling almost 5 percent on Thursday. Thomson Reuters boosted its projection for next week's US gas consumption to an average of 94.2 billion cubic feet per day from 93.3 bcfd on Thursday on forecasts for more heating demand than previously expected.
With temperatures expected to fall further in mid-December, projected demand will reach an average of 114.8 bcfd in two weeks. That compares with forecast usage of just 85.8 bcfd during the mild weather this week. Included in the consumption projections are US exports to Mexico and Canada via pipeline and the rest of the world as liquefied natural gas. US sales abroad were expected to average 10.0 bcfd this week, up 28 percent from a year earlier.
Production in the lower 48 US states needed to meet that demand averaged an all-time high of 76.1 bcfd over the past 30 days, according to Reuters data. Output peaked on Thursday at a daily high of 76.9 bcfd. Analysts said utilities probably pulled just 17 billion cubic feet of gas from storage during the week ended on December 1, the smallest draw for that week since 2006.
That compares with a year-earlier withdrawal of 43 bcf and a five-year average decrease of 69 bcf for that period. If correct, the weekly decline will leave stockpiles at 3.676 trillion cubic feet, or about 1.5 percent below the 3.731 tcf five-year average for this time of year.
Even though the amount of gas in storage is less than usual for this time of year, some traders said that should be more than enough fuel to meet demand this winter, especially if production remains near record highs and the latest weather forecasts for the full season are correct. The National Weather Service projected temperatures would be slightly higher than normal in December, January and February across much of the country, but lower than the previous two winters (2015-2016 and 2016-2017), which were among the warmest on record.
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