Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Mixed Overnight Weather Forecasts Stop the Selling

Natural gas futures are edging higher on Tuesday, recovering some of yesterdays loss due to technically oversold conditions and uncertainty over the overnight forecasts. Despite the small gains, the fundamentals remain bearish especially with the longer-term outlook predicting milder temperatures throughout December. The price action over the last five sessions suggests longs have thrown in the towel on any cold-driven rally this month.

At 17:41 GMT, January natural gas futures are trading $2.427, up $0.021 or +0.87%.

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NatGasWeather Short-Term Outlook

Trends in the overnight guidance were mixed, with the American Global Forecast System adding some heating degree days (HDD) to the outlook but with the European modeling dropping HDD, according to NatGasWeather.

Both models remained “quite bearish” in their projections for the next 15 days outside of a three-day period early next week when “a cold shot exits the west-central U.S. and tracks across the East,” the firm said. Otherwise, the coming upper pattern will be warm to much warmer versus normal over most of the U.S., especially the important Midwest region.

What continues to make the coming pattern emphatically bearish is the weather data shows a very warm setup on the back end of the 15-day forecast as the Arctic cold pool remains too far north to be tapped by U.S. weather systems.

The firm said its looking to the December 25-20 time frame as the next chance for colder temperatures to “finally” reach the U.S.

[fx-article-ad]Recent Liquefied Natural Gas Volumes

Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) estimates show recent liquefied natural gas (LNG) feed gas volumes running at around 11.2 Bcf/d, above its forecast of 10.4 Bcf/d. Further, the firm said it sees upside for LNG utilization through the second and third quarters of 2021, and potential downside for production under lower prices.

“All of this to say, the gas market appears to be pricing in all the bad but none of the good,” the TPH analysts said.

Short-Term Outlook

We wont be surprised by a fast short-covering rally over the near-term. The move would likely be fueled by profit-taking and position-squaring due to technically oversold conditions. Traders would probably welcome a counter-trend move since it would give them another opportunity to short the market at more favorable levels.

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