NGI Weekly Gas Price Index

There were a lot of long faces in both the energy and financial markets for the week ended Aug. 21. Natural gas physical and futures both sustained a double-digit drubbing and the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average fell 14 cents to $2.54. That, however, paled in comparison to the 531-point swan dive the Dow Jones Industrial Average took on Friday.

Physical natural gas prices for the week ending Aug. 14 were remarkably consistent with nearly all points gaining between a nickel and a dime. The NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average rose 10 cents to $2.68 and only a handful of points nationally traded in the red.

If believers needed any more assurance of a well supplied market, they had only to look at Texas and the week’s blistering heat to gain an appreciation of just how ample current supplies are. Texas recorded back to back record power burns Thursday and physical and futures prices moved nary an inch.

It was a tale of two markets for the four-day July physical natural gas trading week that ended on Thursday. Gains in the Northeast separated themselves from the rest of the market with an overall advance of 43 cents to average $2.27, thus lifting the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average by a dime to $2.70. Outside of the Northeast it was a differentstory with prices mired in a narrow trading range less than a nickel either side of unchanged.

Talk about a balanced market! In weekly trading all but a handful of points moved less than a nickel either side of unchanged. TheNGI Weekly Spot Gas Average eased a miserly 2 cents to $2.60, and even those actively traded points showing the greatest gains and losses had a hard time making meaningful double-digit moves.

The first forecast jolt of major heat and humidity across major population centers was able to lift weekly prices across almost all delivery points. For the week ended July 17, the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average gained a solid 18 cents to $2.62, and only three market points, all in New York, fell into the red.

On the surface it looked like a benign week of trading as overall prices moved little and many areas of the country experienced only modest price changes. The NGI National Weekly Spot Gas Average fell just a penny to $2.44, but larger moves in the East and California may augur a shifting natural gas price landscape.

On the surface it looked like a benign week of trading as overall prices moved little and many areas of the country experienced only modest price changes. The NGI National Weekly Spot Gas Average fell just a penny to $2.44, but larger moves in the East and California may augur a shifting natural gas price landscape.

Outside of the East Coast there weren’t many fireworks across the market landscape, and generally the three-day trading week saw prices move less than a dime. In the East, however, it could have been a replay of the attack on Ft. McHenry in Baltimore which in 1814 gave rise to the “Star-Spangled Banner.”