Bidweek

April natural gas bidweek quotes made a quick about-face from March’s abysmal performance as traders sensed an opportunity to lock-in low-priced storage volumes and buyers looked warily at rising futures quotes.

For natural gas bulls there is both good news and bad news contained in March bidweek trading. The bad news, of course, is that prices fell, if not collapsed, as an already mild 2016-2017 winter appears to be wrapping up early. Outdoing February bidweek’s 85-cent drubbing, NGI’s March National Bidweek Average recorded a $1.03 decline to arrive at $2.43.

The natural gas trading landscape is shaping up to be a tale of two markets: a soft near-term February characterized by uninspired bidweek prices offset by analyst predictions of an improved 2017 and 2018.

Natural gas bidweek buyers looking out across the weather/storage landscape lost no time in locking in supplies as a previous storage surplus slid into deficit to both last year and the five-year average and forecasters were calling for successive incursions of cold, Canadian air. The NGI National Bidweek Average rose a hefty $1.11 to $4.31, and all points followed by NGI were solidly in the black, some by multiple dollars.

It was almost as if the bulls couldn’t wait for the first indication winter was on its way, and December Bidweek prices rocketed to the highest bidweek national average since February of 2015.

Overall November bidweek trading fared far better than the free-falling natural gas futures market as the NGI National Bidweek Average eased a modest 3 cents from October bidweek to $2.48, while the November futures settled at $2.764, down a stout 18.8 cents from the settle of the October contract.

At first glance it appeared that double-digit bidweek gains in producing regions from California and the Rocky Mountains to Texas and Louisiana might put a positive luster on October bidweek. However, steep declines in Appalachia and the Northeast offset any hope to a positive outcome and the NGI National Bidweek Average came in at $2.51, unchanged from September, and 15 cents higher than October 2015 bidweek.

September natural gas bidweek bulls regained some of their footing following August Bidweek’s 23-cent setback to $2.43. It wasn’t quite the same as July’s 86-cent surge, but the NGI September 2016 National Bidweek Average rose 8 cents to $2.51, which coincidentally is 8 cents higher than the September 2015 average of $2.43.

August bidweek could aptly be characterized as “You win some, you lose some,” as prices gave back some of the 86-cent gain market bulls enjoyed in July bidweek pricing. NGI”s National Bidweek Average fell 23 cents from July to $2.43, which is only 13 cents below the August 2015 bidweek average.