Leading up to today's EIA Natural Gas Storage report, Natural gas wholesale contracts rose for the third day in a row on Wednesday, hitting a more than two-week high as market players looked ahead to fresh weekly information on U.S. gas inventories to gauge the strength of demand for the fuel. Recap of last week's Natural Storage report.
Natural gas prices for delivery in September on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $2.796 per million British thermal units, the most since August 5.
Natural gas wholesale contracts are up almost 8% so far this week as natural gas traders reacted to forecasts for scorching heat across most of the country through September 5.
According to AccuWeather, the high in Washington DC on September 1 is expected to be 87, three more than normal. Demand for natural gas tends to rise in the summer months as warmer temperatures increase the need for gas-fired electricity to power air conditioning.
EIA Natural Gas Storage Report 8-25-16
Working gas in storage was 3,350 Bcf as of Friday, August 19, 2016, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net increase of 11 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 275 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 350 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,000 Bcf. At 3,350 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.
Analysts were expecting a build of 18 billion cubic feet of natural gas into storage last week, the lowest in six years for a late August week. As of 10:32 ET, natural gas futures were trading higher by 0.6% to $2.812.
Live market data