The futures are up 18 cents at $2.992 having traded as low as $2.67 early Monday.
So much for last Thursday's "EIA: Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report-Injections of 28 Bcf (short it)".
The futures were trading at $2.803 when I wrote that headline and did get to the aforementioned $2.67 but the reversal was enough to give you whiplash (and cost 121% of initial margin if shorted at the bottom).
Although the futures got to $3.277 in late July, three bucks is looking like the magic number, especially if long specs are betting on the coming NYC two-day heat wave or a much lower than average storage report: duh the report will cover the Gulf of Mexico Isaac shut-ins (11Bcf) and the prior NYC heat wave.
Going forward the bullish drivers will be stuff like nuke plant shut-downs which is why we posted "What We're Reading":
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Reactor Status Report for September 10, 2011.
This is re-fueling and maintenance season for the nation's baseload fleet, with natural gas stepping in to fill the gaps if any.
From the NRC...
"Outages totaled 9,300 megawatts, or 9 percent of U.S. capacity, on Monday, up from 6,900
MW out on Friday and 6,900 MW for the five-year average on outages, but down from
9,900 MW out a year ago." (Reuters)
Here's Robin Williams explaining the Muammar ref:
