The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Wednesday morning that U.S. natural gas stocks increased by 9 billion cubic feet for the week ending November 20. Analysts were expecting a storage increase of around 4 billion cubic feet. The five-year average for the week is a withdrawal of around 36 billion cubic feet, and last year’s withdrawal for the week totaled 141 billion cubic feet.
The EIA data is being released a day early due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
Natural gas futures for January delivery traded down about 0.2% in advance of the EIA’s report, at around $2.32 per million BTUs, and traded at $2.34 after the data release, compared with yesterday’s closing price of $2.32. Last Thursday natural gas closed at $2.41 per million BTUs and over the past five trading days natural gas futures peaked at around $2.51 on Thursday. The 52-week range for natural gas is $2.23 to $4.18. One year ago the price for a million BTUs was around $4.15.
On Monday the EIA released crude oil and natural gas proved reserves totals for calendar year 2014. Proved reserves of natural gas rose 9.8% to a record total of 388.8 trillion cubic feet. Total proved reserves of natural gas rose by 34.8 trillion cubic feet.
Demand for natural gas is expected to be low to moderate as temperatures some 8 to 18 degrees warmer than normal are forecast for the eastern half of the U.S. In the West a strong storm is forecast to move into California, heading into the Rocky Mountain states by the weekend. The colder weather is expected to move east and south by the weekend, but lack of reinforcement from another cold blast from the north will moderate the effect of the storm system as it moves on.
Stockpiles are more than 16% above their levels of a year ago and about 6.7% above the five-year average.
The EIA reported that U.S. working stocks of natural gas totaled about 4.01 trillion cubic feet, around 252 billion cubic feet above the five-year average of 3.757 trillion cubic feet and 554 billion cubic feet above last year’s total for the same period. Working gas in storage totaled 3.455 trillion cubic feet for the same period a year ago.
Here’s how share prices of the largest U.S. natural gas producers are reacting to today’s report:
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the country’s largest producer of natural gas, traded down less than 0.1% at $81.82 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $95.33.
Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) down about 0.2% at $5.48. The stock’s 52-week range is $5.04 to $23.55.
EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) traded down about 1.1% at $84.24. The 52-week range is $68.15 to $101.36.
The United States Natural Gas ETF (NYSEMKT: UNG) traded up about 1.1% at $9.15 in a 52-week range of $8.86 to $23.06.
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