Global natural gas markets are finally starting the rally that many producers had been anticipating in recent years. Last year, global demand for LNG dropped so precipitously that some LNG buyers elected to pay LNG liquidation terminals their contractually obligated tolling agreement payments and canceled their delivery of the actual commodity. Subsequently, last summer spot prices for the Japan/Korea Marker (JKM, the Asian LNG version of the Henry Hub natural gas trading hub in the US) traded below $3 per MMBtu. On July 28 of this year, the future contract for September LNG delivery was trading around $14.50 per MMBtu. Figure 1 shows that the JKM price for LNG has increased three-fold over the last year.

On behalf of the team at 5, I am pleased to forward our market letter for the second quarter of 2021. The unusual weather that caused historic outages and extreme electricity and natural gas prices in Texas in Q1 surfaced in other markets in Q2. Both the Pacific Northwest and the Western US faced extreme weather conditions, namely, heat. In Death Valley, temperatures hit 130 degrees on July 9, a world record for the hottest reliably measured temperature in recorded history.

NYMEX Henry Hub Natural Gas prices continue the strong rally that began in March with a persistent increase in prices extending all the way back to the onset of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020. Natural gas prices for the prompt month, balance of 2021, and future calendar years are all moving in the same direction. These sharp price increases can be seen in the NYMEX forward curves in Figure 1. And while all gas prices in all calendar years are on the rise, the strongest rally is in near-term prices over the next 18-months (see black, blue, and green lines in Figure 1).

Given the massive drop in oil and natural gas prices last year, it is no surprise that producers reacted by dramatically reducing rig counts and the amount of gas supplied to the market. This decrease in supply was not only rational but also welcomed as it stabilized prices and storage levels. This past week, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) released their graph of historical natural gas rig counts. This chart, in Figure 1 below, shows the sharp decrease in active natural gas drilling rigs in the nation’s three largest gas-producing regions. The modest increase in total rig counts over the past six months shows that producers are unwillingness to spend significant capital to increase production, given today’s market prices.

To say that commodity markets have been volatile during the last 12 months is an understatement, especially for natural gas. This volatility had many drivers including one of the most active hurricane seasons in over a decade, big drops in LNG demand over the summer followed by a rebound in the fall, one of the warmest Novembers on record, and the frigid temperatures at the beginning of the new year. These factors all contributed to significant price swings in spot natural gas prices.

On behalf of the team at 5, I am pleased to forward our market letter for the first quarter of 2021. This letter focuses on the latest Black Swan event, Uri, the winter storm that hit Texas in mid-February. The storm caused a catastrophic loss of generation and triggered an extended period of extremely high energy prices. This letter provides: (i) a summary and chronology of the legal and regulatory proceedings that Uri has spawned; (ii) a snapshot of how the storm has impacted a variety of market participants including municipal utilities, wind farms, renewable purchasers, commercial and industrial buyers, and the natural gas market; and (iii) an overview of legislative efforts to address electric reliability in ERCOT.

Throughout last month’s Winter Storm Uri, NYMEX Henry Hub natural gas prices increased in volatility. Multi-year highs for the prompt month contract (April) along with daily trading ranges almost as high as earlier this winter were experienced. By late February, the winter storm bulls had left the market, and the bears took over. By the middle of March, April’s contract had sold off from the closing price of $3.032/Dth on February 17th to a closing price of $2.483/Dth on March 15th.

Valentine’s Day may warm our hearts, but it often coincides with some of the coldest weather of the winter, and this year was no exception. Last week, Valentine’s Day weekend was followed by Presidents Day, which means that gas traders must make their purchases for the long weekend on Friday to cover the next four days. The weather forecast on that Friday pointed to record cold temperatures across most of the midcontinent and extending into south Texas. The expectation of cold temperatures and high heating demand over the long holiday weekend started to produce volatility in natural gas markets as early as Friday afternoon.

The price for this winter’s natural gas has seen its fair share of volatility over the past 12 months. Coming out of last winter’s abnormally warm weather, prices for the 2021 calendar year strip saw its all-time low of $2.27 per MMBtu on Friday, March 6, 2020. This was the last trading session before the Saudi Arabia and Russia feud over cutting crude supplies at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Since last March, natural gas prices saw two sustained bull markets where prices rallied more than 50¢, from April through May, and then again from late July through the end of October. These two rallies are highlighted in Figure 1.