US natural gas futures for Wednesday slipped close to a 38-month low with a 5% drop in crude prices and forecasts for less gas demand next week than previously expected. The move lower came despite a decline in production and forecasts that power demand in Texas would rise to a record high over the next week as a heat wave bakes the state.
Front-month gas futures for September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 2.8 cents, or 1.3%, to settle at $2.083 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). That leaves the contract about a penny over Monday's $2.070 close, which was the lowest settle since May 26, 2016. US crude futures closed at their lowest since January.
"(Gas) prices have been unable to stage a convincing recovery after their recent tumble to three-year lows, but they have also been hesitant to completely give up and plunge below $2," Daniel Myers, market analyst at Gelber & Associates in Houston, said in a report. Analysts said gas futures have traded near multiyear lows since May because record production and mild spring weather allowed utilities to inject huge amounts of gas into storage, shrinking a massive inventory deficit and removing any concern about shortages in the winter even though power demand and LNG exports are on track to hit all-time highs this year.
The amount of gas in inventory has remained below the five-year average since September 2017. It fell as low as 33% below that average in March 2019. But with production expected to keep growing, analysts said stockpiles should reach a near-normal 3.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) by the end of the summer injection season on October 31.
Data provider Refinitiv said gas production in the Lower 48 US states dropped to 90.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Tuesday due mostly to small declines in Texas and Louisiana, down from a record high 91.7 bcfd on Monday.
Output hit all-time highs earlier this week even though a section of Enbridge Inc's Texas Eastern pipe in Kentucky is expected to remain out of service through at least August 12 following an explosion on Thursday that killed one person and is restricting gas flows from the Marcellus and Utica shale to the Gulf Coast.
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