Thursday, July 23, 2015

Natural gas fill rate: 61. Wow, that is low. But it is still right at, or slightly above, the 5-year average. Note: In the East Region, stocks were 63 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 41 Bcf.

Gasoline demand (at link scroll to very bottom): hits a new high -- 9.604 million bbls per day, slightly more than last week. 

Active rigs in North Dakota:

	7/23/2015	07/23/2014	07/23/2012	07/23/2011	07/23/2010
Active Rigs	70	194	209	182	138

RBN Energy: the evolution of the natural gas benchmark -- the Henry Hub in Louisiana. (archived)

The Henry Hub in Louisiana is the best known natural gas trading location in the world. There is certainly no more liquid point in the industry.

An average of 350,000 Henry Hub natural gas futures contracts trade on the CME/NYMEX each day. The Henry price is used to compute locational ‘basis’ at all other natural gas trading points in North America and thus is the reference price for tens-of-thousands of derivative instruments and other commercial contracts. But the U.S. natural gas industry is changing rapidly.

Henry started out as a supply market hub but a natural gas demand renaissance in and around Louisiana is transforming it into a demand market hub. How will this impact Henry and can/will it endure as the national benchmark price? Today, we begin an in-depth series looking at Henry Hub, starting with its origins.

Other energy headlines today:

• fluff piece from Bloomberg, oil crash could be worse than you think
• WSJ: big vehicles power surge in GM's profit; aligns with news from Ford
• Reuters: as pump prices drop, US motorists splurge on premium gas
• WSJ: Chinese-controlled CNOOC in deep doo-doo (those exact words not used by the Journal)