British wholesale day-ahead gas prices rose on Friday as forecasts for colder weather lifted demand expectations. * Day-ahead gas rose 2.3 pence to 72.50 pence per therm at 0840 GMT * Within-day gas was yet to trade * Forecasts for domestic gas use for the day ahead were increased by 64 million cubic metres (mcm) to 199 mcm * At the same time the temperature forecast has been halved to 6 degrees Celsius on average * The rise in demand is offset by lower gas-for-power usage which is expected to ...

Norway’s new energy minister Kjell-Borge Freiberg hopes the imminent startup of the major Aasta Hansteen natural gas field in the northern Norwegian Sea will spur further developments in the region. In an interview with S&P Global Platts, Freiberg — who replaced Terje Soviknes on the last day of August — was upbeat about future production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf given continued high spending and new project approvals. “I choose to be optimistic,” Freiberg said. “The last couple of licensing rounds have resulted in record high numbers of license awards ...

Working natural gas in underground storage in the Lower 48 states as of October 31, 2018, totaled 3,208 billion cubic feet (Bcf), according to interpolated data from EIA’s Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report released on November 8. Inventory levels for the Lower 48 states and in each of the U.S. natural gas regions ended the refill season at their lowest levels since October 2005, and these levels were considerably lower than their previous five-year averages. Although the natural gas storage injection, or refill, season is traditionally defined as April 1 ...

With prompt month expiring at $3.79 per MMBtu today, we knew it was coming. I’ve been warning about the assured rise in natural gas prices since the middle of Summer. The story begins with historically low gas storage (despite record high production), a fear factor that was surely to materialize in pricing. The U.S. gas market is about to switch from summer to winter, from injections to withdrawals. Accounting for nearly half of all U.S. gas demand, the Res/Comm sector will be the focus. Although 2019 will be the “U.S. ...

China’s appetite for liquefied natural gas (LNG) has not slowed, but its purchases have been spread more evenly, avoiding last year’s sudden spike to meet winter demand, Australia’s top independent LNG producer said. LNG demand from North Asia’s main hubs in Japan, China and South Korea has slowed in recent weeks, raising concern that forecasts for a milder than usual winter may dent consumption. There are also signs that the ongoing Sino-American trade war is starting to dent industry in China. “We’re not seeing a slowdown,” Woodside Petroleum Chief Executive ...

China has renewed its focus to boost investment in infrastructure projects and prevent a slowdown in funds flowing into that sector, a move that would help to boost the country’s appetite for gasoil, market participants said. Beijing’s plans for the infrastructure sector would also likely benefit China’s independent refiners more since they would have relatively more flexibility to tweak product yields in favor of gasoil, compared with state-run refiners, the sources added. “The infrastructure push will undeniably be supportive for gasoil,” said Nevyn Nah, senior analyst at Energy Aspects. “But ...

Wearing a hardhat and orange vest, Ari Aziz climbs metal steps under a blazing sun until he’s standing atop an 180-foot-high tank in Corpus Christi, Texas. It’s big enough, he proudly points out, to hold a jumbo jet placed diagonally. Aziz is supervising more than 100 workers who form a kind of SWAT team for Cheniere Energy Inc. They’re checking every valve and pipe that feeds the sparkling new tank. On Wednesday, Cheniere said it started producing liquefied natural gas for the first time at the plant. It plans to ...

British wholesale gas prices rose on Thursday due to forecasts for lower temperatures in the coming days and a decline in power produced from wind turbines, which helped stretch the system’s supply-demand balance. * Within-day gas was up 0.50 pence at 68.50 pence per therm at 0841 GMT * Day-ahead gas rose by 0.65 pence to 68.75 pence/therm * Colder weather coming during the weekend, low wind power generation and a slight gas supply deficit moved prices up, said a British gas trader * Average daily temperatures in Britain are ...

Natural gas took a breather after its biggest gain in eight years as forecasts for lingering U.S. cold spurred concern supplies may not be enough to meet winter demand. Gas for December delivery eased 3.1 percent Thursday morning in Asia after surging 18 percent to settle at $4.837 per million British thermal units, the highest since the “polar vortex” of early 2014 that spread an Arctic chill to the Midwest and East. The volume of trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange was was nearly triple the 100-day average. Prices ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Singapore where he will be hoping to secure a bigger foothold for energy supplies and LNG investment among Asia’s fastest-growing economies. Bilateral talks between Putin’s delegation, including energy minister Alexander Novak, and delegations from some of the region’s biggest economies including Japan, South Korea and Indonesia are being held in conjunction with the Russian-ASEAN dialog and East Asian Summit. Asia is a growing market for Russian energy, including LNG, and a potential source of investment for the world’s largest producer of resources and minerals. ...

Under pressure from the Trump Administration to reduce its dependence on Russian energy, Germany seems ready to embrace the idea of its very own liquified natural gas (LNG) import terminal. And it is long overdue. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in October that her government will co-finance the construction of a $576 million LNG shipping terminal in northern Germany. Private investors are already studying the possible construction sites in Brunsbuettel and the nearby Stade, two small ports on the Elbe River close to Hamburg. LNG Stade GmBh consortium, uniting Macquarie ...

US LNG profitability for players with offtake from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal in the Gulf of Mexico has been squeezed further with Henry Hub prices jumping recently, adding further costs on to US LNG deliveries into other global markets, an analysis by S&P Global Platts showed. The Henry Hub front-month contract was seen trading as high as $4.929/MMBtu Wednesday morning, levels not seen since February 2014, according to Platts price data, as forecasts for cold temperatures and low storage levels led to bullish sentiment in the market. As a result ...

Cold weather blanketing much of the United States this week boosted spot natural gas prices for Thursday to their highest since January in several regions, while natural gas futures slid 10 percent as investors took profits after a rally that had lifted them to their highest levels in nearly four years. Front-month gas futures rose as high as $4.929 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on Wednesday, their highest since February 2014. Traders said the cold this week would force utilities to start withdrawing gas from storage caverns that are ...

China’s October refinery runs rose to the second highest on record for any month on a daily basis, official data showed, as refiners ramped up production amid strong margins for gasoline and diesel. The crude processing rate rose 4.6 percent from a year ago to 52.78 million tons, or 12.43 million barrels per day (bpd), just a touch off September’s record of 12.49 million bpd. The strong production echoed record crude oil imports in October. For the first 10 months of the year, the processing rate rose 7.8 percent to ...

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in Asia appears to be coming to terms with the likelihood that China will still buy robust volumes over winter, but not quite at the rate it did last year. In the winter of 2017-18 China’s unrestrained appetite for the super-chilled fuel drove spot prices LNG-AS to what was then a three-year high, upending a market that had previously believed a supply surplus was looming. However, this time around China appears to be managing its winter demand in a more orderly fashion. That means ...