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Natural Gas Fundamental Analysis March 1, 2012, Forecast
Analysis and Recommendations:
Natural Gas is holding at 2.6006 up from this morning’s opening of 2.537. Today about 18,300 megawatts, or 18 percent, of the nation’s nuclear capacity was offline on Wednesday, up from about 10,000 MW out at this time last year and a five-year average outage rate of about 11,500 MW for this week.
With extended forecasts still not showing any extreme cold on the horizon and winter winding down, traders said the huge surplus could pressure prices in late March if contractual obligations force utilities to cycle gas out of inventory to meet seasonal turnover requirements. Early withdrawal estimates for this week’s EIA report range from 82 bcf to 105 bcf, with most in the 90 bcf area versus last year’s drop of 85 bcf and the five-year average decline for that week of 118 bcf.
Many traders remain skeptical of announced production cuts, noting the planned reductions so far were not enough to tighten a market oversupplied by as much as 3 bcf per day, or more than 4 percent.
Natural Gas should continue to slowly sink until it finds a bottom.
Originally posted here
