It was an active day along the natural gas strip, with prices initially rallying ahead of this morning’s EIA print before a slightly smaller injection but larger revision to last week’s report sent prices back lower.
The EIA announced that 66 bcf of gas was injected into storage last week, but the week before revised the reported injection from 91 to 95 bcf.
The natural gas market initially declined a couple cents off the print but continued to decline through much of the morning and early afternoon from there, partially reacting to what was an even looser than expected week the week prior to last. This came after a quick pop above $3, which we warned about in our Morning Update where we advised that any move above $3 was unsustainable. We accordingly had a slightly bearish sentiment that had carried over from yesterday afternoon.
Our weather-adjusted power burn modeling picked up on significant tightening last week that made it more likely that this week’s EIA print would miss to the low side. Sure enough, the print came out smaller than the previous week and the last 10 weeks on average.
Before the tightening last week it was clear we were even looser than the market had realized, however, and that hit the front of the strip hardest through the day today.
Attention tomorrow will turn to expected weekend weather trends, as traders will focus in on how long heat is likely to last through the month of July. We have been seeing significant changes in daily balances on both the supply and demand side as well that have been influencing price action, and in our Note of the Day we have been breaking that down with our latest weather-adjusted modeling for clients.
