U.S. NatGas Production to Hit Record High in 2023, Demand to Fall
Once a month, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Yesterday’s May edition predicts that U.S. natural gas production will rise to hit a new, all-time record high of 101.09 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) this year! That’s up from last year’s record-high of 98.13 Bcf/d. However, the report also predicts domestic gas consumption will fall. What about prices? More supply with less demand typically means lower prices.
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We are currently in the latest quarterly update season. In fact, we are about done with quarterly updates for the first quarter. Most (if not all) of the publicly traded Marcellus/Utica drillers have turned in their quarterly updates, as well as gas drillers from other plays (like the Haynesville). If you review the statements made by U.S. gas drillers in this latest round of updates, you’ll find the sentiment expressed that although we’re currently in the price basement for natural gas, most drillers don’t think it’s going last long. They think low prices for natgas are short-lived and that a rebound awaits us in 2024.
S&P Global Commodity Insights reports that natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica has fallen this month, in April, by some 400 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) from the average production seen during the first quarter. The most notable declines are in eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania. Why is production down? Falling demand (from mild weather) and high rates of storage (extra supply) are crashing the spot price for natural gas traded at the region’s defacto benchmark trading hub–Eastern Gas South.
Lately, we keep reading predictions that the price of natural gas, while in the basement right now (low $2 range), will soon begin to go higher. And the price will stay higher. So say some experts (see our recent stories, 
Once a month, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Yesterday’s latest edition once again revises down the price EIA believes the Henry Hub will average for all of 2023. Last month’s STEO predicted an annual average of $3.02/MMBtu in 2023. This month’s STEO says the HH will average $2.94. Let’s add some color around that prediction.
Some interesting insights from S&P Global Commodity Insights into how the world has changed. S&P’s analysts say the Russia-Ukraine war is in the process of “resetting” the energy sector, with natural gas turning into a global and interconnected market affected by events and dynamics far beyond its traditional physical scope. In fact, S&P says natural gas is now similar, to some extent, to what oil used to be for decades. We will explain.
The NYMEX futures price for natural gas recently hit a 30-month low (see 
Three weeks ago, Chesapeake Energy announced a 15-year deal to provide natural gas for LNG exports to Gunvor Singapore Pte (see 
We have watched, with some distress, the crashing and burning of the price for natural gas in recent weeks and months (see 
Anderson King Energy Consultants, based in Dallas, Texas, advises clients in the oil and gas space on a variety of issues including acquisitions and divestitures, valuations of assets, and company strategy. AK provides its expertise to a number of companies, major companies with names you would recognize. Randy King and Jon Dormer, managing partners at AK, recently sent MDN a brief report that advises drillers to choke back their wells by 50% in order to boost the commodity price of natural gas to levels that are profitable once again.
We consider $2/MMBtu to be “the basement” when it comes to the price of natural gas trading at the nation’s benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana. Yesterday we almost hit the bottom of the basement, with gas closing at $2.03. What happens if gas (gasp) closes below $2? Do we call that the sub-basement? Are we breaking through the barrier and right down into hell? Whatever you call it, prepare yourself. Why did gas tumble again yesterday to a new 30-month low? And will it go lower?
The past 18 months have been a wild ride for natural gas prices. We’ve gone from years of low prices to spiking near $10/MMBtu. In just the past few months, prices have dropped like a rock. The price dropped to a fresh 30-month low yesterday (see today’s lead story). The NYMEX price now threatens to dip below $2/MMBtu. Crazy! According to analysts speaking with Argus Media, we can expect continued wild gyrations in the price of natural gas “for the foreseeable future.” Some analysts say that volatility (sudden spikes up and down) in the price of natgas “could be here to stay.” As in permanently.
Once again, the NYMEX futures price, based on the physical Henry Hub price for natural gas, appears to be in a freefall. Yesterday, the NYMEX’s front month contract price (for April) lost 18 cents per million British thermal units (MMBtu), or 8%, dropping to $2.17/MMBtu. It sure feels like the bad old days when we couldn’t keep the price above $3/MMBtu. This is the second-lowest price this year so far. Yesterday’s price was 77% lower than the 52-week high of $9.68 hit Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. Why so low? Warm weather and high production.
We’re always a sucker for a good price prediction. Everybody and his brother (and sister) loves to predict where the price of the NYMEX Henry Hub will go in the next few months, or even for the next few years. Ratings agency giant Fitch, which owns the Fitch Solutions subsidiary, is the latest organization out with a prediction of where natgas prices will end up in 2023. Fitch says the NYMEX average for this year will be $3.60/MMBtu. Which is interesting, given for the past couple of months the price can’t get much above $2.50. Fitch must think the price will go quite a bit higher at some point this year in order to average out at $3.60 by year’s end.
CERAWeek, happening this week in Houston, Texas, is one of (perhaps THE) premier oil and gas conferences held each year. Everybody who’s anybody attends, except for yours truly. Sometimes it’s the things you (over)hear around the proverbial water cooler at such events that are more interesting than what is said from the stage or in media interviews. For example, Banpu’s BKV, with major assets in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission late last year to launch an initial public offering (see 
Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, released its latest Macro Forecaster, a report developed for the financial services industry, yesterday. The new report is focused on the outlook for near-term oil and gas prices. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of good news for the natural gas sector. According to Al Salazar, senior vice president at EIR, “Natural gas production has been resilient in 2023 in comparison to 2022, and we expect 2.9 Bcf/d of growth over the summer. Some of the growth will be offset by incremental LNG demand from Freeport LNG terminal’s restart and increased price-induced power burn growth, but natural gas prices will be under intense pressure.” Hmmm. We don’t like the sound of that.