US natural gas prices fell to $3.07 per million British thermal units on Monday, extending the previous session’s decline to a two-week low as unseasonably mild weather persisted. Forecasts indicate that moderate temperatures will likely continue through late October, dampening both heating and cooling demand. At the same time, expectations linked to El Niño are weighing on the outlook for winter consumption.
On the fundamentals side, recent data show that the storage surplus has been narrowing. As of October 9, inventories were 3.9% below their level a year earlier and only 1.3% above the five-year average. In parallel, average natural gas flows to the nine major US LNG export terminals have eased to 17.6 bcfd so far in October, down from 17.9 bcfd in September. On the supply front, gas production in the Lower 48 states has averaged 110.8 bcfd so far this month, below the record 113.3 bcfd reached in both August and September.
