Natural gas futures prices were trading up about 1% in advance of the EIA’s report, at around $3.86 per million BTUs, and jumped to $3.92 immediately following the EIA report. Natural gas futures have slipped by about $0.05 per million BTUs (about 1.2%) since last week.
Stockpiles are about 17.7% below their year ago levels and about 18.9% below the five-year average. The rise in U.S. stockpiles is still on course for a record April through September injection record.
When the EIA released the latest revision to its Short-Term Energy Outlook earlier this week, the agency forecast that natural gas prices would drop to an average of $3.95 per million BTUs in the third quarter, down $0.62 from its estimate just a month ago. Gas production is forecast to rise in the third quarter and full-year production is forecast to rise by 810 million cubic feet per day to 73.89 billion cubic feet in 2014 and to rise an additional 1.49 billion cubic feet per day in 2015 to a daily total of 75.47 billion cubic feet.
The EIA reported that U.S. working stocks of natural gas totaled 2.47 trillion cubic feet, about 575 billion cubic feet below the five-year average of 3.04 trillion cubic feet. Working gas in storage totaled 3 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.
Here’s how stocks of the largest U.S. natural gas producers are reacting to Thursday’s report:
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the country’s largest producer of natural gas, was down about 0.4% at $98.65 in a 52-week range of $84.79 to $104.76.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) was up about 0.3% at $25.83 in a 52-week range of $22.63 to $29.92.
EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) was down about 0.5% at $105.84. The 52-week range is $75.69 to $118.89.
The United States Natural Gas ETF (NYSEMKT: UNG) was up 2.4% at $21.57 in a 52-week range of $16.59 to $27.89.
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