Thursday, September 17, 2020

EIA Natural Gas Storage Report: Possibly Our Worst Call Ever

And that's saying something considering all the opportunities we've had.
Here's Tuesday's post (minus the primates watching magic, for that follow the link): 
Since Friday morning's "EIA Natural Gas Weekly Update": 
The current price, 2.295 -0.028 seems like a dandy place for sentiment to shift to the long side.

https://finviz.com/fut_chart.ashx?t=NG&p=h1&s=m&rev=637357711205952296
natty, of course, had to drop another 2% just to get yours truly thinking about life and what it means to me, before gapping up Sunday evening/Monday.

And today?
At 2.3770 the idealized pattern would be a short term cup-n-handle, with the price drifting off as the hurricane passes before popping above 2.38 on the realization that "Hey, the LNG terminals didn't get hit! They can still ship gas!".
(hurricane action is in the front-right quadrant, in this case Mississippi/Alabama, not Louisiana)

So, as we await Sally's landfall, I shall watch a video:...
And today's action. First up the estimates going into the report, from FX Empire:
...According to Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI), analysts are expecting a plump storage build with the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) latest report on Thursday at 14:30 GMT.
A Bloomberg survey found estimates ranging from 68 Bcf to 81 Bcf, with a median of 78 Bcf, while a Reuters poll found a low estimate of 68 Bcf and a high of 85 Bcf with a median of 80 Bcf. Energy Aspects projected a 90 Bcf build for the week. NGI’s model predicted an 84 Bcf injection for the week-ending September 11.
Last week, the EIA reported an injection of 70 Bcf for the week ending September 4. That build lifted inventories to 3,525 Bcf and kept domestic storage on pace to approach 4.0 Bcf by the end of October, the EIA said. At that level, containment risks could shake up the markets....
Plump. How about morbidly obese?
From the Energy Information Administration:
...Working gas in storage was 3,614 Bcf as of Friday, September 11, 2020, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net increase of 89 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 535 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 421 Bcf above the five-year average of 3,193 Bcf. At 3,614 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.

For information on sampling error in this report, see Estimated Measures of Sampling Variability table below.
Working Gas in Underground Storage Compared with Five-Year Range  
Note: The shaded area indicates the range between the historical minimum and maximum values for the weekly series from 2015 through 2019. The dashed vertical lines indicate current and year-ago weekly periods.
And finally the price action from the CME:
https://www.tradingview.com/x/rLLzqcjP/

No excuses, more to come tomorrow.