Natural Gas -- Re-Posting -- October 24, 2019

I can't recall now but I think I might have said that this year (or last year or next year, I forget) would be the Year of Natural Gas. Re-posting two incredibly interesting articles.

First, the EIA report: natural gas inventories: lots of it and more coming -- graphic previously posted --

• for the week ending October, 11, 2019, first week since September 22, 2017, that working gas inventories have surpassed the previous five-year average (and the five-year average has been trending up)
• weekly injections in three of the past four weeks were all higher than 100 billion cubic feet
• weekly injections for three of the past four weeks, a whopping 27% more than usual injections for same time of year
• this week also ended a 106-week streak of lower-than-normal natural gas inventories
• this week's report will be out later today

Then, RBN Energy's blog today -- natural gas exports to Mexico swell, but is a tidal wave coming?

For some time now, natural gas producers in the Permian and the Eagle Ford have been counting on rising pipeline exports to Mexico to help absorb a lot of the incremental production in their plays.

Their hopes have been bolstered in the past couple of years by the build-out of a number of new pipelines from the Waha and Agua Dulce gas hubs to the U.S.-Mexico border. Gas pipeline development south of the border hasn’t kept pace, though, mostly due to regulatory and construction delays. Also, a recent dispute over tariffs on a newly completed large-diameter pipeline, extending from the southern tip of Texas to key points along Mexico’s Gulf Coast, had left the pipe sitting empty this summer.

That tiff has since been resolved and gas is flowing on the new pipeline, allowing those piped southbound exports to hit a daily record high near 5.9 Bcf/d earlier this month and average above 5.5 Bcf/d this month to date.

Plus, progress is being made on other planned Mexican pipes too. This all leads us to ask, is the long-promised surge in U.S. gas exports to Mexico just around the corner? Today, we look at the latest developments regarding Mexico’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure additions.