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U.S. natural gas futures rose on Monday after weather forecasts for the second half of March turned colder, as well as lower U.S. production, but concerns persisted about growing surpluses of storage. hold down attempts at a rally.
“The 37% premium that natural “Gas storage holding at the five-year average should hold a $2.00 cap on first-month prices,” says BOK Financial's Dennis Kissler, adding that from a technical standpoint, “the bearish trend “continues support for April futures in the $1.60 area.”
Energy traders said another factor supporting prices was the Continuous decline in US production. after domestic gas prices collapsed in February to their lowest level since June 2020.
Nymex (NG1:COM) natural gas delivery closed for the first month of April +2.9% at $1,703/MMBtu.
ETF: (NYSERCA:UNG), (BOIL), (COLD), (FCG), (UNL)
Meanwhile, European natural gas prices rose as much as 8.1% on Monday before stabilizing. +6.7%extending gains for a fourth day after falling as much as 30% since the start of the year, as traders focus on Factors that will affect recharge storage. before next winter.
A power outage has affected gas fields serving the FLAGS pipeline, which transports gas from the North Sea and the Norwegian continental shelf to the St. Fergus terminal; A maintenance outage is scheduled to begin today at the Shell (SHEL) St. Fergus gas plant. reducing supply by 10 to 15 million cm/day, and an outage also began today at the Norwegian Aasta Hansteen field with a supply loss of 7.5 million cm/day.
Natural gas prices are also tracking crude oil gains after Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries are raising “the geopolitical temperature,” says Saxo Bank's Ole Hansen.
