It was an exciting expiry for the September natural gas contract, as after rallying in the morning and pulling back into the early afternoon the contract spiked in the final hour before expiry to expire up around a percent and a half on the day.
The role that the September contract had in dragging up the rest of the strip was clearly seen by the end of the day.
In our intraday Note out at 10:30 AM Eastern we highlighted this curve structure, indicating that there was short-term downside but also that with such a curve structure we could be looking at a bounce around expiry.
Additionally, in our Morning Update highlighted that, “…morning spreads would indicate that any September bounce towards $2.88 or $2.9 for expiry would only be a temporary bullish catalyst for the strip.” We did get that catalyst, though, with the September contract expiry at $2.895 and U/V ballooning.
Hotter afternoon model guidance helped increase concerns about storage levels and seemed to be one catalyst for the spike in the final hour of the day. These hotter trends come after previous guidance had cooled the long-range, as seen on the CPC 8-14 Day temperature probability forecast.
Moving forward, traders are equally focused on tomorrow’s EIA print, which is likely to show the largest build in storage since late June. Most analyst estimates sit above the 5-year average build of 59 bcf as well, which would also market the first time since late June we built more than the 5-year average in a week.
Of note last week were LNG exports which dropped off but have thus far recovered this week, something we track daily for subscribers.
Following quite a bit of volatility today, we would expect tomorrow to be fairly active as well with shifting weather forecasts, a larger EIA build, and a changing supply picture.
