U.S. natural gas futures held steady as the market waited for direction from a federal report expected to show utilities pulled more gas from storage than usual to heat homes and businesses during extreme cold weather last week.
Prices failed to move despite a rise in flows to Freeport LNG’s export plant in Texas after the plant shut on Tuesday and forecasts for more gas demand over the next two weeks than previously expected.
Analysts projected utilities pulled around 244 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas out of storage during the week ended Jan. 17, which was marked by extremely low temperatures.
That compares with a drop of 277 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year average draw of 167 bcf for this time of year.
Front-month gas futures for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange remained unchanged at $3.957 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 8:27 a.m. EST (1327 GMT).
Analysts projected energy firms would pull over 200 bcf of gas out of storage for a third week in a row in the week ended Jan. 24 to meet the record heating demand seen this week. That drawdown would likely erase the small surplus of gas, measured over a five-year average, in inventory for the first time since January 2022.
Some analysts said storage withdrawals in January could top the current monthly record high of 994 bcf set in January 2022, according to federal energy data.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
Financial firm LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states has fallen from 104.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in December to 101.9 bcfd so far in January, due mostly to freezing oil and gas wells and pipes, known as freeze-offs. That compares with a monthly record of 104.5 bcfd in December 2023.
Freeze-offs from Jan. 18-21 caused output to drop by 6.3 bcfd to a one-year low of 97.4 bcfd on Tuesday.
In past years, freeze-offs cut gas output by roughly 8.1 bcfd from Jan. 9-16 in 2024, 4.6 bcfd from Jan. 31-Feb. 1 in 2023, 15.8 bcfd from Dec. 20-24 in 2022, and 20.4 bcfd from Feb. 8-17 in 2021, according to LSEG data.
Meteorologists projected that weather in the Lower 48 states would remain mostly colder than normal through Feb. 7, with several near-normal days mixed in between Jan. 27-Feb 4.
But with milder weather coming, LSEG forecast average gas demand in the Lower 48 states, including exports, would fall from 157.0 bcfd this week to 142.2 bcfd next week. Those forecasts were higher than LSEG’s outlook on Wednesday.
On a daily basis, LSEG said total gas use peaked at 173.5 bcfd on Jan. 20 and 181.4 bcfd on Jan. 21, easily topping the prior daily record high of 168.4 bcfd on Jan. 16, 2024.
The amount of gas flowing to the eight big U.S. LNG export plants has risen to an average of 14.8 bcfd so far in January, up from 14.4 bcfd in December. That compares with a monthly record high of 14.7 bcfd in December 2023.
On a daily basis, LNG feedgas was on track to rise to 12.7 bcfd on Thursday, up from an 11-week low of 11.6 bcfd on Wednesday after Freeport LNG’s 2.1-bcfd export plant in Texas shut on Tuesday.
Flows to Freeport LNG were on track to rise to 0.5 bcfd on Thursday, up from near zero on Tuesday and Wednesday. That compares with an average of 1.9 bcfd over the prior week.
In other LNG news, flows to Cheniere Energy’s
LNG
4.5-bcfd Sabine Pass export plant in Louisiana were on track to slide to a one-month low of 4.4 bcfd on Thursday, while flows to the company’s 2.4-bcfd Corpus Christi in Texas were on track to fall to a four-month low of 1.6 bcfd.
Flows to Venture Global’s 2.6-bcfd Plaquemines export plant under construction in Louisiana, meanwhile, were on track to rise to a record 1.3 bcfd for a second day in a row on Thursday.
Source: Reuters