After a volatile week of trading, Natural Gas closed Friday down 3.14%. The commodity posted a loss for the week, 2.8% lower than a week ago at $2.25.
Despite the demand for liquified natural gas rising this week, it has been the weather in the US that has dictated natural gas prices.
The damage to platforms from Hurricane Delta pushed prices higher on Monday, but fluctuating weather forecasts kept natural gas prices volatile and mostly lower throughout the week.
Natural Gas prices have been rising steadily over the last few weeks as the weather turns colder in the US. Colder than normal weather forecast in the mid-west for the next two weeks is helping alleviate some of the concerns over increasing storage numbers, and the bigger picture looks healthy for Natural Gas, despite Friday’s plunge of over 3%.
Friday’s decline was in response to data released from the EIA, highlighting storage increases. The EIA reported that domestic supplies of natural gas increased by 46 billion cubic feet (Bcf) for the week ended October 9.
Total stocks now stand at 3.877 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), up 388 Bcf from the same time last year, and 353 Bcf above the five-year average, the US government body said.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report, natural gas-fired generators accounted for 43% of operating U.S. electricity generating capacity in 2019. These natural gas-fired generators provided 39% of electricity generation in 2019, more than any other source.
Erdogan Announces New Turkey Natural Gas Reserves
A report in the economic times published today says that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared that Turkey has found more gas reserves in the Black Sea.
Aboard the Fatih drillship, which discovered 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves in August, Erdogan said:
“As a result of testing, analysis, and detailed engineering work, another 85 billion cubic meters were added to the reserves we had discovered,”
“Total amount of natural gas reserves in the Tuna-1 well in Sakarya Gas Field reached 405 billion cubic meters,”
