Natural gas prices rock steady as demand bets offset storage build

Investing.com - The bulls in natural gas are surviving one odd after another.

Total inventories of the fuel in storage rose by 95 billion cubic feet last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, reported in an update on Thursday. That was above the 88-bcf build for the week ended June 16 that was forecast by industry analysts tracked by Investing.com. The highest estimate by most analysts was 91 bcf.

In the prior week to June 9, utilities injected just 84 bcf into storage after burning the gas needed to meet power and cooling needs.

“This number came in much more bearish than the market was anticipating with a 95-bcf injection being on the upper end of survey range,” Houston-based energy markets advisory Gelber&Associates observed in a note to its clients in natural gas.

Gas futures initially tumbled on the larger-than-expected storage build, hitting a session low of $2.532 per mmBtu, or million metric British thermal units, versus Wednesday’s close of $2.597.

By Thursday’s settlement though, front-month gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Henry Hub settled up 1.1 cent at $2.608 per mmBtu.

One possible reason for the market's comeback: Higher anticipation of cooling demand in the coming days and weeks as the U.S. summer season slowly and surely brings higher temperatures.

“Power burn demand has decreased to 37.9 bcf/day today, the Gelber note said. ”As weather warms over the coming weeks, power burn is likely to increase back to previous levels and push higher.”

Gas headed for best month since August; "higher lows" seen for prices

With a near 15% gain for June, gas futures on the Henry Hub are headed for their best performance since August — the month they hit a 14-year high of $10 per mmBtu.

While summer weather hasn’t hit its typical baking point across the country, cooling demand is inching up by the day, particularly in Texas. This has sparked realization in the trade that higher price lows might be more common than new bottoms.The lowest Henry Hub’s front-month got to this week was $2.448, versus the $2.136 bottom seen at the start of June.

Notwithstanding the optimism of gas bulls, last week’s 95-bcf build in gas storage compared with a 76-bcf injection during the same week a year ago and a five-year (2018-2022) average increase of 86 bcf.

With the latest stockpile increase, the EIA reported that total gas in underground caverns in the United States stood at 2.729 trillion cubic feet, or tcf — up 26.5% from the year-ago level of 2.158 tcf and 15.3% higher than the five-year average of 2.367 tcf.