US Natural Gas Prices Steady Ahead of Storage Report
US natural gas prices remained steady ahead of a crucial storage report. The market was waiting for direction from a federal storage report that would show whether hot weather and high air-conditioning demand had caused energy firms to add less gas to storage than usual.
The front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 0.6 cents, or 0.2%, to $3.02 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). Analysts forecast that energy firms added 64 billion cubic feet of gas to storage during the week ended September 25.
This figure compares with an increase of 56 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year average increase of 80 bcf for the period. Financial firm LSEG noted that average gas output in the US Lower 48 states held at 113.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in September, matching the monthly record high in August.
However, over the past week, output has averaged a lower 110.7 bcfd, due to a force majeure declared by Canadian energy firm TC Energy's Columbia Gas Transmission unit on the Mountaineer XPress gas pipe in West Virginia.