Natural gas ends week up 14% as bulls break past mid-$2 pricing

Investing.com -- One of the most depressed commodity markets is beginning to show signs of an upside.

Natural gas futures posted double-digit gains this week, looking poised to break further from the restraints of mid-$2 pricing that has characterized much of the trading since March in America’s favorite fuel for indoor heating and cooling.

The front-month gas contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Henry Hub settled Friday’s trade at $2.5850 per million metric British thermal units, virtually unchanged after Thursday’s gain of 22.7 cents, or 10%.

In the latest session, the benchmark gas contract hit a two-month high of $2.683 — versus the $2.50 level which has been its ceiling since March.

More importantly, the Henry Hub’s front-month finished this week up 14%, adding to last week’s 6% gain.

Despite the rally of the past two weeks, gas futures remain down more than 40% on the year, a phenomenon from troubles that have accumulated since the last quarter of 2022.

The gas rally comes on the back of what some sensed as improving fundamentals for the fuel, despite its supply glut.

U.S. natural gas storage rose by 99 billion cubic feet, or bcf, last week, the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, said Thursday, announcing a smaller-than-expected build that bolstered sentiment in a market that needs to see less stockpile increases and more demand.

The build in gas inventories for the week ended May 12 compares with the 78-bcf increase from the previous week.

“The market expected a 108-109 bcf injection, and immediately following the release [of the data, the] prompt price rallied,” Gelber&Associates, a Houston-based advisory for energy markets, said in a note.

“Should the market break above the 50-day moving average, this would be an indication of bullish sentiment that has the potential to propel prices toward the $3.00/mmBtu level, a level that has seen significant resistance.”

Notwithstanding the smaller-than-expected build for last week, the latest inventory rise put total gas in underground caverns in the United States at 2.24 trillion cubic feet, or tcf. That was 30.3% higher from the year-ago level of 1.719 tcf and 17.9% above the five-year average of 1.9 tcf.