NGI Mexico GPI

Colder trends in the outlook for later this month into early December helped natural gas futures snap a two-day losing streak Wednesday. Bouncing back partially from heavy selling during Monday’s and Tuesday’s sessions, the December Nymex contract added 4.9 cents to settle at $2.559/MMBtu. January settled at $2.611, up 3.5 cents.

Absent any clear cold signals to excite a weather-focused natural gas market, futures prices continued on a downward trajectory Tuesday. Coming off a 12.2-cent sell-off a day earlier, the December Nymex contract fell another 5.6 cents to settle at $2.510, near the session’s low of $2.501. January settled at $2.576, down 5.4 cents. In the…

Natural gas is “the most important issue” currently facing Mexico’s energy sector, energy minister Rocío Nahle said on Tuesday.

Plans unveiled recently by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to finance a $632 million natural gas pipeline in southern Mexico could be the start of a new and more ambitious project for the gasification of Central America, Alejandro Giammattei, president-elect of Guatemala, told a gathering of business leaders in early November.

Helped by recent model runs returning cold to the outlook, natural gas futures gained Friday as the market looked ahead to the weekend weather data for more clarity on the upcoming pattern. The December Nymex contract picked up 4.1 cents to settle at $2.688/MMBtu after trading as high as $2.724 and as low as $2.606. January settled at $2.750, up 3.1 cents.

Mexico’s natural gas market needs more clarity as to how its two main pipeline systems will interact, from both a physical and regulatory perspective, according to Talanza Energy Consulting’s Daniela Flores, head of midstream and downstream.

Mexico’s natural gas market remains attractive despite recent macro-political uncertainty, according to two executives tasked with developing their firms’ respective gas marketing divisions in the country.

As the market digested divergent weather outlooks and a slight bearish miss from the latest government storage data, natural gas futures finished higher on Thursday but gave back some of the gains recorded late in the previous session. The December Nymex contract settled at $2.647/MMBtu, up 4.7 cents day/day but well off the $2.696 intraday high. January settled at $2.719, up 2.7 cents.

Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following column as part of a regular series on understanding this process, written by Eduardo Prud’homme.