NO RELIEF IN SIGHT FOR NATURAL GAS PRODUCERS: Mild winter has little impact on oversupplied market

摘要

It may sound like a broken record, but unfortunately it's the same old story in the natural gas market this month. Increasing supplies, coupled with a less-than-robust winter heating season, has caused the market to languish. Gas storage levels are running 20% above the levels of last year and above the five-year average. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has predicted that at the end of the withdrawal season (March 3D, working gas in storage could hit a record high of 1.83 Tcf (51.8 × 10~9 m~3). Compounding the challenge of mediocre winter heating demand has been the fact that gas supplies continue to grow. The EIA reported production increased 1.3% to 72.61 Bcfd (2 × 10~9m~3/d) last November, the most recent month for which data is available. It said 58% of that increase was from U.S. states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, where new shale developments have increased gas production to 20.66 Bcfd (5.5 × 10~6 m~3/d).