The past few weeks EIA data has been coming right in line with estimates and not significantly moving natural gas prices. The result is that December contract prices settled up a percent and a half on the day today, yet settled less than a cent above where they were trading heading into the EIA print. 

Today the Energy Information Administration announced that last week we injected 65 bcf of natural gas into storage. 

This keeps total natural gas stockpiles just slightly below the 5-year average. 

This was just 1 bcf off from our estimate of 64 bcf which was passed along to clients in our Morning Update. We also correctly identified the number as having an overall Neutral price impact for the natural gas market in our EIA Rapid Release Update, sent out around 10 minutes after the EIA print is released. 

In fact, recently we have had a very strong handle on the supply/demand balance in the natural gas market, helping us to more accurately judge the role of weather on the market as well. Last week we were only 2 bcf on the EIA print and again correctly predicted it was a net “Neutral” for the market (volatility was even lower following the print than it was today). 

The week before that we had the number on the nose too. 

And even the week before that (4 weeks ago) we were only off by 2 bcf, as our model homed in on to the current market balance. 

The result is that in the last 4 weeks we have been off by a collective 5 bcf with our estimates heading into the EIA print, indicating both that there have been few surprises with the EIA numbers and that our supply/demand model currently has a good handle on the market as we head into the heating demand season. This also means that when gas traders complain about some of the recent low volatility, EIA data coming within expectations likely has played a role with that too.