Bearish

The natural gas cash market added 2 cents on average overall Tuesday for Wednesday delivery with small gains and small losses at most points characterizing the day’s trading. Midwest points were mixed as weather outlooks held to seasonal norms, and Gulf points were a few pennies higher. At the close of lackluster futures trading September had drifted lower by 0.1 cent to $3.318 and October had eased 0.3 cent to $3.343. September crude oil dropped $1.26 to $105.30/bbl.

Lack of heat and hurricanes, ample supply and capacity constraints were once again working in concert Friday for weekend and Monday natural gas delivery as physical gas price averages across the country continued lower with certain infrastructure-challenged locations in the Northeast coming off by 50 cents to nearly a dollar. September natural gas futures continued to probe lower Friday and ended up dropping 4 cents to close at $3.347, a fresh five-month low for a prompt-month close.

Virtually all points fell Thursday as they succumbed to a triple whammy of bearish threats: further increases in storage inventories, futures weakness and mild weather for mid-winter that refuses to go away and allow normal cold conditions to take hold.

Not surprisingly, with the weekend decline of industrial load being added to the existing bearish influences that had taken the market lower in the previous two days, prices fell again at nearly every location Friday in the launch of the October aftermarket.

With weather, futures, the weekend factor and lack of tropical threat appearing mostly bearish, it wasn’t quite clear how a substantive portion of the cash market managed to achieve small rebounds Friday. But flat to moderately higher numbers showed up at a majority of points, primarily in the Midcontinent/Midwest, Gulf Coast and Rockies.

September natural gas futures fell hard Thursday following the release of bearish inventory figures and unsuccessful attempts to fend off aggressive selling in equity and oil markets. At the close September natural gas had fallen 14.9 cents to $3.941 and October had dropped 14.7 cents to $3.955. September crude oil imploded by $5.30 to settle at $86.63/bbl.

April natural gas futures suffered a double-digit loss Tuesday as bearish views on the market — which ranged from robust selling by short-term traders to abundant production — trumped those seeing a tighter storage dynamic firming prices. At the close April futures had retreated 16.4 cents to $3.873 and May natural gas had fallen 16.0 cents to $3.950. April crude oil surged $2.66 to $99.63/bbl as concern surfaced that Libyan unrest would spread to Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Last year offered “ample reason” for investors to turn bearish on natural gas, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon said Wednesday. “We heard it was a terrible product and no one would ever make any money at it.”

Last year offered “ample reason” for investors to turn bearish on natural gas, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon said Wednesday. “We heard it was a terrible product and no one would ever make any money at it.”