Natural Gas downtrends on warm winter, supply

Forexpros - Natural gas prices dropped again Wednesday, as forecasts of nonstop mild winter weather in the U.S. dampened sentiment on the heating fuel ahead of Thursday’s report on U.S. natural gas supplies. 

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, natural gas futures for April delivery traded at USD2.75 per million British thermal units during U.S. morning trade, tumbling 1.5%.   

It earlier fell by as much as 1.95% to trade at a session low USD2.719 per BTU. 

Natural gas prices came under selling pressure after the Commodity Weather Group said warmer-than-normal temperature was forecast for the next two weeks across most parts of the U.S. Midwest, Northeast and South.

According to the firm, temperatures in the Northeast may be 8 degrees above normal throughout the period. For the eastern U.S. as whole, temperatures may be 5 degrees higher than normal.

Weather service provider AccuWeather offered a similar outlook. The company expects temperatures in the U.S. Northeast and Midwest to mostly average above-normal for the next five days.

Meanwhile, natural gas traders were looking forward to Thursday’s closely-watched U.S. Energy Information Administration’s report on U.S. natural gas stockpiles for the week ended February 10 to gauge the strength of demand in the U.S.

The data could show a decline of 146 billion cubic feet, compared to last year's drop of 102 billion cubic feet and the five-year average decline for the week of 145 billion.

With high levels of production continuing across the U.S., only a prolonged period of frigid weather in the last six weeks of winter is likely to reduce stockpile levels and raise prices. 

Inventory withdrawals this winter are running nearly 530 billion cubic feet below average, or about 33%, due to the lack of heating demand this winter.

Winter so far in the U.S. has been the second mildest since 1950. It is running about 13% warmer than the 30-year normal, according to recent data from MDA EarthSat.    

Last winter at this time, cold weather conditions led to a decline of more than 1.9 trillion cubic feet from U.S. storage to help meet the surge in heating demand. In contrast, only 1.1 trillion cubic feet of storage gas has been burned this winter season, a 42% drop.

Total U.S. natural gas inventories stood at 2.761 trillion cubic feet as of last week, 42% above year-ago levels and 38% higher than the five-year average for this time of year. 

Elsewhere on the NYMEX, light sweet crude oil futures for delivery in April traded lower 0.34% to trade at USD105.89 a barrel.