Natural gas prices remained in their tight range, testing both the upper and lower bounds with overnight selling and then a spike off a bullish EIA print. The March contract settled several ticks down in the end with a larger range than we saw yesterday. 

The front of the strip saw about equal losses on the day, with most contracts moving in tandem through the day. 

The main story of the day was the tight EIA print, as the reported withdrawal beat expectations and shot prices higher. 

In our Morning Update we had highlighted that there were risks for a bullish miss in EIA data that could spike prices, even though we saw overnight heating demand losses pulling prices lower initially. 

In our EIA Release we then classified the print as “moderately bullish” as it missed our expectations by a decently bullish amount, but we also highlighted that any bounce off it was “fade-able” because of the weather, which played out well today. We included a number of charts and graphics breaking down how the print fits into the past year and 5 years of data and what it tells us about the current natural gas balance, which is one way we see how risk is skewed for prices moving forward. 

This was released to clients right after the EIA print came out, and sure enough prices reversed off the initial rally and that $2.55 support level held in the afternoon, fitting our expectations for the day perfectly (even if the EIA print did not). Attention now turns to forward weather expectations, which as can be seen on the latest Climate Prediction Center forecasts are not impressive for heating demand. 

Yesterday’s runs of the CFSv2 climate model for Weeks 3 and 4 did show some cold risks in March to watch for, though the model is notoriously volatile.