The Weekly Natural Gas Market Newsletter

December 5, 2022

Natural Gas News & Notes

The January 2023 NYMEX natural gas futures contract settled down $1.049 at $6.281 as its first week of trading as the prompt month contract. The contract traded in a $1.20 range reaching a high of $7.421 early in the week and a low of $6.221 on Friday morning. The primary driver of prices this week was near‐term weather outlooks that indicate that most of the country is expected to see warmer than normal temperatures over the next two weeks.

For the week ending 11/25, the EIA reported a withdrawal of 81 BCF from storage. This withdrawal was right in‐line with market estimates and puts working levels of storage at 3,483 BCF which is 2.5% below year ago levels and 2.4 BCF below the previous 5‐year average. Based on supply and demand variables for last week, early estimates for next week's report indicate only a very minor withdrawal in the 10 BCF range is possible.

US LNG daily exports reached 13 BCF on Thursday marking the highest daily output level seen since early June before the Freeport facility went offline. The Calcasieu Pass facility which began liquefaction operations earlier this year has finally started to reach its full production capacity near 2 BCF/day. The Freeport LNG facility released a statement on Thursday indicating that it had received certain regulatory approvals needed to complete repairs and commence reinstatement of certain operating systems. Full regulatory approvals are expected to be in place with the facility expected to restart operations by month's end. The Freeport facility has a maximum capacity of 2.4 BCF/day and was providing 15% of daily US LNG exports prior to the June explosion that forced the plant offline.