EIA Natural Gas Storage Report 02-23-23
Summary
Working gas in storage was 2,195 Bcf as of Friday, February 17, 2023, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decrease of 71 Bcf from the previous week.
Analyst expected today’s EIA weekly storage report to show a decrease at about 72 Bcf.
Stocks were 395 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 289 Bcf above the five-year average of 1,906 Bcf. At 2,195 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
Spring remains in full bloom across the South through early March with only minor intrusions of cooler air at times. Winter is still anchored across Canada, producing a wide variety of winter precipitation from the northern Plains across the Great Lakes into New England. A strong, short-lived cold shot will swing across these areas over the next couple of days. Temperatures will continue to be variable next week, averaging a little below normal. The strong cold has encased the Western states and although some weakening of the cold weather is likely in early March, temperatures will remain below to much below normal on average.
The partial restart of production at Freeport LNG and a recent accompanying boost in gas deliveries to the terminal is already tightening market fundamentals in East Texas where basis prices are rising. Over the past 10 days, feed gas flows to Freeport have edged up to an average 420 MMcf/d, or their highest since last June, prior to the terminal’s shutdown, data from S&P Global Commodity Insights shows.
Freeport Train 3 has fully restarted with Train 2 partially restarting while Train 1 will need approval from the regulator to begin restarting. Each of the three trains at Freeport is 0.7 Bcf/d of capacity and so the current capacity is likely just over 1 Bcf/d. The facility will get back to its full capacity of 2.1 bcf/d in the coming weeks after approval of the last train is granted by Federal regulators according to Reuters.
“The return of Freeport volumes is a bullish factor for US markets and a bearish factor for international ones,” Michael Stoppard, global gas strategy lead at S&P Global Commodity Insights, said in an interview.
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Read more: EIA
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