After significant selling, March natural gas prices were finally able to settle in the green for the second time in the last ten trading sessions, settling up a bit more than a percent and a half on the day. 

Though the March contract led through much of the day, it declined into the settle, actually settling up just slightly less than the April contract. The entire strip logged gains that were fairly equal, though. 

The result is that despite the gains along the strip the H/J spread was actually around neutral on the day, something we analyzed for clients today. 

This did not come as much of a surprise to subscribers. Yesterday when natural gas prices were nearing their lows we issued our Note of the Day explaining that we saw risk skewed upwards for prices. 

Yesterday’s Afternoon Update then had the slightly bullish sentiment that was confirmed by the overnight rally in prices. 

Our Morning Update showed modest GWDD increases from last afternoon’s expectations, which were more than enough to support prices. 

We did see prices decline a bit into the settle, with afternoon guidance not quite as impressive. 12z GEFS guidance showed more warmth across the Southeast than the overnight 0z run, as shown below (courtesy of the Penn State E-Wall). 

However, cold risks remain in long-range forecasts, with the American CFSv2 climate models showing the average of the four runs yesterday containing decent cold risks in both Weeks 3 and 4 (courtesy of NOAA). 

Along with our accurate analysis of today’s natural gas price action, we published our Seasonal Trader Report for our Trader level subscribers today, looking at our seasonal forecast through the next 5 months and the impacts on natural gas storage while providing a few ideas on how to trade the forecast. In the report we break down how we see concerns about limited storage levels moving forward competing with record production levels, as we are quite confident we exit the winter withdrawal season with less gas than the 5-year average.