North American natural gas futures for February delivery kept rising this week as cold weather over the coming week promises to boost demand. The New York Mercantile Exchange February contract ended Thursday at $2.821/MMBtu, up 15.3 cents on the day.

LNG demand in the United States has been strong at around 14 Bcf/d. Mexico imports, while seasonally lower, are picking up after a weak December and holiday period.

For the past 10 days through Thursday, Mexico imported 5.89 Bcf/d of U.S. natural gas via pipeline. This was an increase of 0.07 Bcf/d from the previous 10-day period. The maximum daily flow was on Dec. 27 at 6.16 Bcf, and the minimum was 5.54 Bcf on New Year’s Day.

“December 2023 was the lowest overall import demand average since April 2023, which had an average...