Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Crushed by ‘Exceptionally Comfortable’ Temps Ahead of EIA Data

Natural gas futures are being pounded lower on Thursday shortly before the release of the weekly U.S. government’s storage report at 15:30 GMT. The selling started early in the session and was essentially a continuation of yesterday dismal performance.

December got off to a promising start for the bulls after last month’s temperatures helped produce one of the warmest Novembers on record, but continues changed quickly as forecasts began to introduce milder temperatures.

Pockets of cold are expected throughout the Midwest and East Coast, but the rest of the United States is expected to be “exceptionally comfortable” by early December standards, according to NatGasWeather, essentially leaving the pattern for December 4-12 not as cold as needed to drive prices higher.

At 13:08 GMT, January natural gas futures are trading $2.649, down $0.131 or -4.71%.

Short-Term Weather Outlook

According to NatGasWeather for December 3-9, “A weather system with rain and snow will track out of the Rockies and into the Southern Plains/Texas today with chilly lows of 10s to 30s, although countered by the East warming back into the 40s to 60s. Most of the US will warm above normal this weekend into next week besides the slightly cool Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Coast where a weather system will bring showers. Overall, national demand will be moderate-high today, then back to low late this week into next week.”

Weekly US Energy Information Administration Storage Report

NatGasWeather says, “For today’s EIA weekly storage report, a large range in national survey averages between -10 and -17 Bcf, but with the most notable near -10 Bcf. It was warmer than normal over most of the US besides the Great Basin. Our algorithm predicts a draw of -9 Bcf, lighter than the 5-year average of -41 Bcf, although tricky due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.”

Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) says, “A Bloomberg survey of six analysts produced a range from a 26 Bcf withdrawal to a 1 Bcf injection, with a median draw of 19 Bcf. Reuters polled 16 analysts, whose withdrawal estimates were as low as 28 Bcf and injection estimates were as high as 3 Bcf, with a median decrease of 12 Bcf. A Wall Street Journal poll of 12 analysts showed draws ranging from 8-28 Bcf. NGI projected a 15 Bcf pull.”

Daily Forecast

The soft start to winter is expected to continue to weigh on prices. Also pressuring prices is an unexpected increase in production, but this may be offset somewhat by liquefied natural gas demand, which remains very supportive at near-record levels. Nonetheless, the bears are back and they may not leave until winter shows up, which may not be until early 2021.