Colder than normal temperatures lead to lowest natural gas stocks since 2014
The stored supply of natural gas in the United States has reached its lowest levels since 2014, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report.
The state of the storage lies at 1,351 billion cubic feet (Bcf) stored as of March 31, 2018. The reason for this is colder than normal temperatures in the 2017-2018 heating season, leading to a massive amount of use of the natural gas stocks. This reached its peak in January, when a weekly all-time record was set, through the withdrawal of 359 Bcf. Overall, net withdrawals reported for the season reached 2,247 Bcf.
The EIA also predicts that injections into storage for the summer season will be higher than normal, though to reach regulatory obligations for providing winter heating services, storage operators would have to pump in around 30 percent more natural gas than the average of the previous five injection seasons. By the end of October, the EIA expects working gas levels to reach 3,767 Bcf. To reach that figure will require the equivalent of 11.3 Bcf per day.
Net injections of this level are only possible due to increases in U.S. natural gas production. In fact, production levels are expected to reach an average 81.6 Bcf per day during refill season, 11 percent more than last year’s rate.
