NGI Weekly Gas Price Index

Outside of wintry conditions boosting heating demand along the East Coast, it was a bearish week for natural gas, a fact reflected in weekly spot gas prices. Most regions finished 10-20 cents in the red, but big gains in the Northeast helped lift the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average 7 cents to $2.96/MMBtu.

The arrival of winter cold following a period of mild temperatures helped lift natural gas spot prices in some regions this week, but a sell-off in futures showed it wasn’t cold enough to send the bears into hibernation. The NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average gained 18 cents to $2.89.

Natural gas markets spent the week looking ahead to December cold; between bidweek and futures trading, the natural gas markets keyed in on forecasts for chilly temperatures expected to move through beginning Dec. 6-7. A relative lack of short-term demand weighed on the spot market as it waited for that forecast cold to materialize, and the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average fell 14 cents to $2.71/MMBtu.

A lack of consistent cold weather heading into the Thanksgiving holiday had spot prices trending downward for the second week in a row, and the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average during the three-day trading week for Nov. 21-27 flow dropped 14 cents to $2.85/MMBtu.

Natural gas markets spent most of the week in retreat, as futures traders puzzled over mixed signals in the medium- to long-range forecast and the spot market suffered a let-off in demand following last weekend’s cold temperatures. The NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average fell a dime to $2.99/MMBtu.

Winter started during the week ended Nov. 10, at least as far as natural gas markets were concerned.

The wait for winter weather is on, and it showed in NGI’s weekly natural gas spot prices, as the vast majority of points in the Lower 48 ended the week in the red. The NGI National Spot Gas Average for the week fell 28 cents to $2.42/MMBtu.

Weekly natural gas trading started off with a bang as a perfect storm of soaring temperatures, loss of electrical transmission,, and constrained pipeline transportation converged on the Los Angeles Basin and set prices early in the week rocketing by $9 to upwards of $12.

Although on balance weekly natural gas prices were unchanged for the week of Oct. 20, try telling that to traders working the SoCal Citygate or constricted Appalachian basins.