Bleak winter for natural gas prices
Sagging natural gas prices, hovering around seven year lows, have hammered Alberta. The province is running a massive deficit thanks in part to low gas prices, jobs have been lost, and producers have shut in wells. Forecasters have been trying to sort out when fortunes will turn, and Peters & Co. Ltd. does not have good news for the impatient.
“The outlook for natural gas prices for this winter is poor....as total supply and demand in the U.S. are not forecast to come back into balance until the second half of 2010,” the Calgary-based brokerage house said in a recent research note.
“However, the North American supply/demand situation should swing sharply back in favour of higher natural gas prices in the second half of 2010 as we forecast that, even with flat year-over-year industrial and residential gas demand, U.S. gas storage will decrease...for the beginning of the 2010/2011 heating season.”
