There are reports of producers laying on (and willing to lay on more) hedges at $4.00 or so which would make any move above that level very tough. On the other hand there has been a subtle but very important change in the supply picture over the last couple months, more on that later.
First up, today's action via FinViz:
And from the EIA:
Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report
for week ending March 8, 2013. | Released: March 14, 2013 at 10:30 a.m. | Next Release: March 21, 2013
| Working gas in underground storage, lower 48 states Summary text CSV JSN | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historical Comparisons | |||||||||||||||
| Stocks billion cubic feet (Bcf) |
Year ago (03/08/12) |
5-Year average (2008-2012) |
|||||||||||||
| Region | 03/08/13 | 03/01/13 | change | (Bcf) | % change | (Bcf) | % change | ||||||||
| East | 830 | 922 | -92 | 1,067 | -22.2 | 792 | 4.8 | ||||||||
| West | 339 | 344 | -5 | 346 | -2.0 | 264 | 28.4 | ||||||||
| Producing | 769 | 817 | -48 | 965 | -20.3 | 684 | 12.4 | ||||||||
| Salt | 175 | 190 | -15 | 222 | -21.2 | 108 | 62.0 | ||||||||
| Nonsalt | 594 | 627 | -33 | 744 | -20.2 | 577 | 2.9 | ||||||||
| Total | 1,938 | 2,083 | -145 | 2,378 | -18.5 | 1,740 | 11.4 | ||||||||
Summary
Working gas in storage was 1,938 Bcf as of Friday, March 8, 2013, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decline of 145 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 440 Bcf less than last year at this time and 198 Bcf above the 5-year average of 1,740 Bcf. In the East Region, stocks were 38 Bcf above the 5-year average following net withdrawals of 92 Bcf. Stocks in the Producing Region were 85 Bcf above the 5-year average of 684 Bcf after a net withdrawal of 48 Bcf. Stocks in the West Region were 75 Bcf above the 5-year average after a net drawdown of 5 Bcf. At 1,938 Bcf, total working gas is within the 5-year historical range...
