The underlying theme underpinning last week's gas trading boiled down to one word: demand. Until brisk demand for natural gas returns, gas futures are likely to remain in a rut, channeling between $3.50 and $4.50 per million Btu for quite some time, traders say. "Gas prices can only move higher once industrial demand kicks back in and LNG finds other homes besides the US," said a gas trader in Dallas. "The only way that's going to happen is when people get their jobs back, start using lots of electricity and start buying lots of products again. That sort of return of consumer confidence takes time, but when enough time elapses, production can actually fall enough to meet demand, and then that's when we're off to the races." However, other traders are not so pessimistic about a near-term rise in gas prices.
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