Leticia Gonzales

With crisp temperatures hovering over the Pacific Northwest and Canadian air moving down into the Midwest and East, weekly natural gas prices across the country posted losses for the Aug. 5-9 week. Led by steep declines in the Rockies and California, the NGI Weekly National Avg. dropped 6.5 cents to $1.89.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 55 Bcf injection into storage inventories for the week ending Aug. 2, a figure that was on the low end of expectations and 4 Bcf below consensus.

After some modest strength early Wednesday, natural gas futures ended the day lower as traders shrugged off building heat in long-range weather forecasts. After hitting a high of $2.145/MMBtu, the September Nymex gas contract went on to settle 2.8 cents lower at $2.083. October slipped 2.5 cents to $2.099.

A trifecta of headwinds delivered a gut punch to natural gas forward prices for the Aug. 2-7 period, with 10-cent declines at the front of the curve and nearly-as-steep losses seen through next summer, according to NGI’s Forward Look.

Stoked early by increasingly hotter long-range weather forecasts, natural gas futures continued to rise Thursday after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a storage injection that was slightly below what the market had expected.

Oklahoma City-based Enable Midstream Partners LP has pushed back its certificate filing for a proposed pipeline that would move natural gas from northern Louisiana to the Gulf Coast in order to allow more time for “active discussions” with potential shippers for additional capacity commitments.

A hotter turn in weather models was enough to keep natural gas bears at bay Tuesday, one day after September prices sunk to a fresh summer low and put $2 gas into play. The September Nymex gas futures contract settled 4.1 cents higher at $2.111/MMBtu, while October edged up 4.1 cents to $2.124.

After some modest strength early Wednesday, natural gas futures ended the day lower as traders shrugged off building heat in long-range weather forecasts. After hitting a high of $2.145/MMBtu, the September Nymex gas contract went on to settle 2.8 cents lower at $2.083. October slipped 2.5 cents to $2.099.

Natural gas bears picked up right where they left off last week, slaughtering the Nymex futures curve on Monday as feed gas deliveries to a pair of Gulf Coast liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals continued to decline and weather forecasts showed heat mostly limited to the southern United States for the next couple of weeks.