The Platts pre-report analyst survey suggests U.S. EIA data will show a 72 to 76 Bcf addition to natural gas stocks for the latest reporting week

Washington - July 1, 2009

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday is expected to report an addition of between 72 and 76 billion cubic feet (Bcf) to natural gas storage inventories for the week that ended June 26, according to a Platts survey of analysts.

An injection within expectations would come in below that of the same period a year ago, when the build was 86 Bcf, and the five-year-average injection of 85 Bcf, according to EIA.

As a result, the surplus over the same week last year and the five-year average, which was 631 Bcf and 482 Bcf, respectively, as of the week ended June 19, should each shrink.

Analyst estimates ranged from a build of 60 Bcf to 85 Bcf. EIA estimated a build of 94 Bcf for the week ended June 19.

"Some truly hot, sticky summer weather was finally experienced across a good portion of the U.S. last week, which got all of those gas-fired power generating stations up and running closer to flat out," Martin King, First Energy analyst said. "The West Coast and New England were the only two regions that escaped above-average temperatures last week."

King noted that if his 70-Bcf injection estimate is anywhere close to the mark, it will also be the first time that the year-over-year storage surplus has narrowed since the beginning of February.

"Admittedly, the narrowing might not be much, but at this stage, we'll take what we can get to prevent storage caverns from overflowing," he said.

Kent Bayazitoglu, director of market analytics at Gelber & Associates, said the continued hot weather in the South and pockets of hot weather in the North will make for the smallest injection since mid-April.

But he added that injections will rebound because of mild weather in the Northeast and the July 4th holiday, assuring that storage levels will reach 3 Tcf by the end of July.