Natural Gas News – July 7, 2023

Natural Gas News – July 7, 2023

Column: Europe’s Gas Storage is Filling Too Fast

LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) – Europe’s gas storage is filling more slowly after prices fell sharply in the first half of the year, but a further slowdown will be needed to prevent space running out before the start of winter 2023/24. Stocks were already relatively high and the rate of accumulation ahead of winter is likely to keep nearby gas futures prices under pressure over the rest of this northern hemisphere summer. Gas inventories across the European Union and the United Kingdom amounted to 889 terawatt-hours (TWh) on July 4, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (“Aggregated gas storage inventory”, GIE, July 6). Stocks were +246 TWh (+38% or +1.80 standard deviations) above the 10-year seasonal average although the surplus had narrowed from +280 TWh (+81% or +2.43 standard deviations) on March 31. St…

Natural Gas at Crossroads in East-West Heat Battle

As New York and Eastern U.S. temperatures soar into the 90s Fahrenheit in the first heatwave of the summer, scorching conditions in Texas and the Southern states are subsiding after increased cloud cover and showers over the July 4th holiday stretch. That has left gas prices at a crossroads, with the path of least resistance looking lower in the immediate term, as the market loses its chutzpah of the past four weeks to head for its first weekly loss since. Most-active August gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Henry Hub was exposed to a 6% loss on the week, after a near 30% rally over the past month. After last Monday’s three-month high of $2.936 per mmBtu, or million metric British thermal units, the front-month gas contract has been capped at a mid-$2 to sub-$2.70 range. Said Sunil…