With U.S. LNG exports notching new post-Hurricane Beryl highs, natural gas futures were trading sharply higher through midday trading Monday.
Here’s the latest:
- August Nymex natural gas futures up 11.4 cents to $2.241/MMBtu as of 2:xx p.m. ET
The August contract was building on gains sparked by a bullish government storage report on Thursday.
This week, traders would be watching earnings reports on Wednesday from gas producers EQT Corp. and Range Resources for any clues to any changes in output plans.
EQT, with 1 Bcf/d of winter curtailments to unwind, has been one of the more notable guideposts for the market. The prompt month Nymex contract peaked this summer in June a day before CEO Toby Rice told NGI’s Kevin Dobbs that the company was in the process of incrementally bringing back supply.
“EQT began restoring a big part of its held back production when Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC went into service last month, but they still have a bit more work to do,” according to NGI’s Pat Rau, senior vice president of Research & Analysis.
- Feed gas deliveries to U.S. export facilities pacing at their highest level since Beryl forced shutdowns along the Gulf Coast, per NGI data.
Deliveries to U.S. liquefied natural gas terminals on Monday were up 0.7 Bcf/d day/day to about 11.45 Bcf/d, the highest since July 6, the data show.
Deliveries to the Freeport LNG in Texas rose over 1 Bcf of feed gas Monday. The facility loaded two vessels this weekend, and a third was scheduled to arrive Tuesday, per vessel-tracking data from Kpler.
Feed gas volumes to Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG rebounded 57% day/day to 1.2 Bcf/d after a pipeline cut flows over the weekend. TC Energy Corp.’s ANR Pipeline Co. (ANR) declared a force majeure through next Tuesday (July 30) for shipments that run via an interconnect to the Louisiana terminal.
Lower flows from ANR were being offset by increased deliveries to Calcasieu Pass LNG from Enbridge Inc.’s Texas Eastern Transmission LP and EnLink Midstream LLC’s intrastate Bridgeline Holdings LP pipelines, Wood Mackenzie analyst Alex Sealy said.
- Natural gas cash prices were higher across regions, according to NGI’s MidDay Price Alert
- Henry Hub averaging $2.195, up 31.0 cents; Transco Zone 5 averaging $2.470, up 39.5 cents
Updated weather models over the weekend advertised cooler trends for the East and slightly hotter weather for north-central U.S. and California, according to Maxar’s Weather Desk.
Maxar’s five-day forecast maintained below-normal temperatures across the South, including Texas, while the West would remain hotter than average. The firm’s six- to 10-day outlook showed the heat moving east with cooler risks in the West early in the period.
Nationally, cooling degree days were expected to bounce along 30-year norms over the next week before trending higher from hotter weather into the first week of August, NatGasWeather data show.
