Articles tagged Bidweek

Baseload natural gas prices for April were poised to plummet from already low levels, with weather models taking a decidedly warmer turn as bidweek trading got underway Monday.

Natural gas prices are set to remain strong for September baseload gas amid domestic supply concerns and surging global prices ahead of the peak winter season, NGI’s Bidweek Alert (BWA) data showed.

Two leading Price Reporting Agencies (PRA) indicated that the decline in reported transactions has leveled off in recent years, and they remain confident that the data received from the market is sufficient to determine published natural gas indexes.

Natural gas prompt-month futures traded about a penny higher ahead of expiration Monday, with the market’s attention turning to injection season as weather models pointed to some lingering cold risks for March. In the spot market, changes were mixed against a backdrop of generally lackluster Lower 48 demand; declines in California and West Texas countered gains along the East Coast, and the NGI National Spot Gas Average added 3 cents to $2.43.

Hurricane Harvey’s demand-killing impact on the natural gas market has been apparent since the Category 4 storm made landfall across the Texas coast late Friday, but things could turn decidedly more bullish -- albeit temporarily -- in the days to come as demand begins to creep higher while production remains offline, some analysts say.

The number of natural gas transactions disclosed to NGI and other price reporting agencies (PRA) has been in an overall decline since the financial crisis of 2008, but there are reasons to believe volumes are stabilizing and problems will be prevented before they reach a critical level, according to NGI’s Patrick Rau, director of Strategy & Research.

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.

If February bidweek was disappointing, March bidweek was a disaster. February bidweek saw the NGI National Bidweek Average fall 23 cents to $2.23 and some points traded positive. No such luck for March. No points followed by NGI came anywhere close to being in the black and most points lost about a half-dollar, or more. The NGI March National Bidweek Average fell a gut-wrenching 63 cents from February 2016 to $1.60, which is also $1.50 below the March 2015 bidweek average.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday issued an order against Total Gas & Power North America (TGPNA) and one of its West Desk traders bringing and settling charges for attempted manipulation of natural gas monthly index settlement prices during bidweeks at four major trading hubs in Texas and elsewhere in the Southwest.

With the exception of a few constrained northeast points bidweek quotes had the trajectory of a safe falling from a ten story building. Declines were broad and pervasive across nearly every market point, and the NGI National Bidweek Average fell a stout 29 cents to $2.07.