RBN Energy: Looking at Natural Gas Production

RBN Energy link.

Remember all that talk about cutting back on natural gas production a couple weeks ago? I haven't hearad much since, and RBN Energy is suggesting the cutback was shortlived.

Check out those year-to-date numbers.  Dry production up 4.6 Bcf/d, or 7.7% versus last year.  That has kicked Canadian and LNG imports in the teeth, down -15% and -48%, respectively. 

Power burn (gas used for power generation ) is up year-to-date by an incredible 4.9 Bcf/d or 29%.  That is the only thing that is keeping this market afloat.  Because industrial demand is down slightly (by -1%) and residential/commercial demand is lower by -18%.  The obvious implication is that there is a lot more gas going into storage, and that is why the gas market is on pins and needles trying to figure out if enough storage capacity exists to hold all the inventory that will need to be stored by the time this injection season is over – and that’s sometime in November.

“But wait”, you say.  “What happened to all of those announcements from producers that were going to be cutting back supplies because of low prices?

There is a nice analysis of this at the link.