NG was up 5% yesterday on winter storms and forecasts for colder weather in the US
WTI -2.55% @ 36.90...after API yesterday
Natural gas earlier this month fell to a 14-year low, but has jumped more than 60 cents in a little more than a week on indications of strengthening seasonal demand in coming weeks, short covering, and reports of production shut-ins in the Permian Basin, located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, as a result of winter storms, wrote analysts at Tradition Energy, in a note.
The analysts said upside might be limited, however, due to “record storage levels of gas, robust production levels, and expectations that the cold weather that is forecast for the first part of next month will last for less than a week.”
Meanwhile, oil futures took back much of the ground lost in the previous day’s rout.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February CLG6, -2.38% rose $1.06, or 2.9%, to finish at $37.87 a barrel. The U.S. benchmark remains down more than 9% since the end of November and is on track for a 2015 decline of nearly 29%.
February Brent crude LCOG6, -1.61% on London’s ICE Futures exchange added $1.17, or 3.2%, to finish at $37.79 a barrel. The global benchmark is down more than 15% in December and is on track for a 2015 drop of more than 34%.
