Natural gas futures prices were trading down about 0.3% in advance of the EIA’s report, at around $3.77 per million BTUs, and rose to around $3.85 immediately following the report.
For the same week a year ago, stockpiles rose by 59 billion cubic feet. Stockpiles are about 18.7% below their levels of a year ago and about 21.7% below the five-year average.
The EIA has said that less than halfway through the summer storage injection season, natural gas storage is on its way to a record overall build. The EIA now projects a build of 2.6 trillion cubic feet for the season beginning in April and running through October. Inventories are expected to reach 3.34 trillion cubic feet at the end of October, about 348 billion cubic feet (about 92%) below the level at the end of October 2013.
The EIA reported that U.S. working stocks of natural gas totaled 2.31 trillion cubic feet, about 641 billion cubic feet below the five-year average of 2.95 trillion cubic feet. Working gas in storage totaled 2.84 trillion cubic feet for the same period a year ago. Natural gas inventories continue to rise, but remain well below the bottom of the five-year range.
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Here is how stocks of the largest U.S. natural gas producers reacted to this latest report:
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the country’s largest producer of natural gas, is down about 2%, at $101.18 in a 52-week range of $84.79 to $104.72. Exxon reported weak second-quarter results Thursday morning.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) was down about 1.6%, at $26.56 in a 52-week range of $21.85 to $29.92.
EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) was also down about 1.6%, to $111.87. The 52-week range is $72.31 to $118.89.
The United States Natural Gas ETF (NYSEMKT: UNG) was up about 1.9%, at $21.17 in a 52-week range of $16.59 to $27.89.
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