Updates
December 17, 2018: a reader offers a perspective on last week's draw.
I pulled out some historical data to compare last week's report to in the last couple paragraphs here. The caveat is that it was colder than normal in November and it's warmer now, and forecast to stay that way, so after this week our withdrawals should start to moderate..
The natural gas storage report for the week ending December 7th from the EIA showed that the quantity of natural gas in storage in the US fell by 77 billion cubic feet to 2,914 billion cubic feet over the week, which left our gas supplies 722 billion cubic feet, or 19.9% below the 3,636 billion cubic feet that were in storage on December 8th of last year, and 723 billion cubic feet, or 19.9% below the five-year average of 3,637 billion cubic feet of natural gas that are typically in storage after the first week of December.
This week's 77 billion cubic feet withdrawal from US natural gas supplies was below the consensus average of 83 billion cubic feet that analysts had expected, and was a bit less than the average of 79 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been withdrawn from storage during the first week of December in recent years.
Natural gas storage facilities in the East saw a 20 billion cubic feet drop in supplies over the week, which increased the region's gas supply deficit to 14.5% below normal for this time of year, and natural gas supplies in the Midwest fell by 29 billion cubic feet as their supply deficit rose to 14.7% below normal for the first weekend of December. Despite a surprise 8 billion cubic feet injection of natural gas into salt dome storage facilities, the South Central region still saw a net 7 billion cubic feet drop in their supplies, as their natural gas storage deficit slipped to 26.6% below their five-year average for this time of year. At the same time, 8 billion cubic feet were pulled out of natural gas supplies in the sparsely populated Mountain region as their deficit from normal rose to 22.7%, while 15 billion cubic feet were withdrawn from storage in the Pacific region, where their natural gas supply deficit rose to 28.3% below normal for this time of year.
Putting that storage data into historical perspective, the 2,914 billion cubic feet of natural gas that we had in storage on December 7th was 13.2% lower than the previous early December 5 year low of 3,359 billion cubic feet that was set on December 5th of 2014, and was 11.5% below the previous 10 year low of 3,291 billion cubic feet that was set on December 5th of 2008. This year's December 7th storage was also 1.7% below the the 15 year low of 3,166 billion cubic feet of natural gas that we had in storage on December 9th of 2005, and 2.3% below the 2,984 billion cubic feet that were in storage on December 5th of 2003, a year when supplies had peaked at a lower level than this one. We have to follow the archived records (xls) back 16 years, to December 6th of 2002, when 2,794 billion cubic feet of natural gas were in storage, to find a lower quantity of natural gas in storage at this time in December than we have now.
Over the four weeks of this year's heating season to date, 333 billion cubic feet of natural gas have withdrawn from storage in the lower 48 states; that compares to the 164 billion cubic feet that were used in the first five weeks of last year's heating season; when withdrawals began during the first week of November.
For other recent years, there were 241 billion cubic feet of gas withdrawn for use in the 4 weeks up to December 9th of 2016, 154 billion cubic feet in the four weeks up to December 11th of 2015, 252 billion cubic feet withdrawn in the 4 weeks up to Dec 5th or 2014, and 301 billion cubic feet withdrawn in the 4 weeks to Dec 6th of 2013...the comparative withdrawals in the 3 years prior to that were all smaller than 123 billion cubic feet, so there is nothing in the recent storage data history (xls) that approaches the early winter natural gas storage withdrawals we have seen this year.
Link here.
That little "leveling off" we "almost" saw last week was not sustaining. The slope today is clearly a "negative" slope.
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