Natural Gas Prices on the Decline in the Global Market
- 01-Nov-2022 5:56 PM
- Journalist: Robert Hume
Hamburg, Germany- The slump in Russian Natural gas along the Dutch benchmark front-month gas fell to around Euro 100 per Mw-hr, the lowest since mid -June have shown the early winds of change in the Global Natural gas market. Early October marks the beginning of winter gas season when heating demand typically increases, but Europe had milder weather than usual, which has dampened growth. A combination of increasing Natural Gas volume storage, lower demand, and mild weather has eased concerns about a spike in heating and power prices. With the week ending on October 28th, the cost of Natural Gas in Germany slipped to Euro 114 per Mw-hr with a week-on-week decline of 13.30%. The European Union has also built a close-to-capacity gas storage facility to protect against further supply cuts.
Cargo ships of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) raced from the United States (U.S.) and Qatar to Europe to fulfill the domestic demand. The dash to offer Natural gas to Europe was perfect to the point that vessels are currently loitering off the coast, trusting that slots at crowded terminals will unload their cargo. Europe's healthy loads of Natural gas address significant support against additional shorts of Russian supplies.
This week, the price of Natural Gas in the United States elevated due to record high export to the overseas market, making big profits on it because of continued demand from the European market. However, in the domestic market, because of warmer weather forecasts, worries about tight supplies shifted to potential lower heating fuel demand in the U.S. As a result of increasing production rates among enterprises, domestic gas supply, and demand are under control, and natural gas prices are significantly lower.
According to ChemAnalyst, the price of Natural Gas in the global market will remain capped due to sufficient Natural gas stocks and rising production rates among enterprises. On October 28th, Berkshire Hathaway Energy's Cove Point LNG plant in Maryland resumed its operation after a month-long maintenance, while the Freeport plant in Texas will resume production in early to mid-November, further slowing down the Natural gas price trend.