Pricing Snapshot:
- Natural gas is holding in the low $3.00 range and is expected to remain relatively low through 2027, with current prices hovering near 24‑month lows until the 2027–2028 winter, when the forward curve begins to rise.
- Power futures are showing more volatility, with winter electricity pricing trending in the $60–$70/MWh range and shoulder-month lows in the upper $40s/MWh.
- LNG exports have recently pulled back to around 16.8 Bcf/d, the lowest level in months, driven largely by seasonal maintenance rather than weaker demand; at the same time, the new Golden Pass LNG facility near Sabine Pass, TX, is ramping up, with full export capacity of up to 2.7 Bcf/d once fully online.
Natural Gas Storage and Supply
Weekly EIA Natural Gas Storage Report
The weekly EIA Natural Gas Storage Outlook report tracks the volume of natural gas in underground U.S. storage, revealing weekly fluctuations and comparison against 5-year averages.
Natural Gas Pricing Snapshot
LNG Exports
Both NYMEX forward strips and LNG export levels remain near recent averages, suggesting a largely balanced market for now.
(Charts: NYMEX Natural Gas Calendar Strips and LNG Exports)
NYMEX Natural Gas Calendar Strips
The NYMEX 12-Month Strip averages the next 12 months of Henry Hub futures into one price. It’s a powerful indicator of market sentiment — allowing traders (and end users) to lock in year-long coverage at a blended rate.
Watching shifts in this strip helps gauge the broader direction of gas markets, beyond just the prompt month.
What you should do
- For electricity: A managed index electricity agreement sets the framework to buy future energy in blocks, letting you lock in specific cost components (such as capacity and line losses) while leaving the energy portion flexible until market conditions are favorable. You can layer in blocks over time or fully fix your contract if the hedged rate becomes attractive, so it often makes sense to choose a longer term to give yourself more time and flexibility to execute your hedging strategy.
- For natural gas: If your gas contract is structured as NYMEX plus an adder (covering transportation, supplier margin, and utility-related costs), you can typically request a fixed price for the remainder of the term. With forward gas prices over the next 24 months trading near their lowest levels in the curve, now may be a good time to evaluate converting some or all of that NYMEX+ exposure into a fixed rate.
Natural Gas Production: Lower 48 States
Weather Outlook
June 3–8: Weather systems will bring showers and thunderstorms to parts of the U.S., but conditions will remain generally pleasant across the northern states, with highs in the 60s to 80s. The southern U.S. remains warm to hot with highs in the 70s to 90s, and into the 100s in the Southwest. Overall, national energy demand is expected to be low over the next seven days.
What You Should Do
For electricity:
A managed index agreement provides flexibility in a shifting market. Instead of locking in all energy costs upfront, you secure the structure of your contract while choosing when to hedge components like capacity or energy blocks. This approach allows you to:
A managed index agreement provides flexibility in a shifting market. Instead of locking in all energy costs upfront, you secure the structure of your contract while choosing when to hedge components like capacity or energy blocks. This approach allows you to:
- Take advantage of favorable pricing opportunities over time.
- Avoid committing to energy purchases during short-term market volatility.
- Extend your decision window—longer contract terms mean more opportunities to hedge strategically.
For natural gas:
If you are on a NYMEX-plus agreement, you may have the option to lock in a fixed price for the remainder of your term. With gas trading near 24-month lows, now is a strong opportunity to evaluate:
If you are on a NYMEX-plus agreement, you may have the option to lock in a fixed price for the remainder of your term. With gas trading near 24-month lows, now is a strong opportunity to evaluate:
- Converting floating exposure into a fixed rate.
- Reducing risk ahead of potential demand rebounds or geopolitical shifts.
- Securing budget certainty at historically favorable levels.
PJM Ad Hub DA & Forward Trend Analysis
JM Ad Hub DA & Forward Trend Analysis
This chart shows where current PJM AD Hub day‑ahead and forward power prices sit versus the past two years of trading, and whether today’s levels look cheap or expensive for each future period.
Big picture
- Each bar represents a 24‑month trading range for a specific month, quarter, or year in the future, with the light blue band showing the lowest and highest prices over the last 2 years.
- The dark mark inside each bar is today’s forward price, so you can instantly see if the market is currently near the top, middle, or bottom of its recent range.
What the table tells you
- The table underneath lists, for each period (Q2‑2026, Q3‑2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, etc.):
- Current price in that strip.
- The maximum and minimum prices over the last 24 months and the dates they occurred.
- The current percentile (for example, 3% means today is near the very bottom of the 2‑year range; 86% means it’s near the top).
- The actual prices at the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles act like “cheap / mid / rich” reference points.
How to interpret it for decisions
- Periods where the current price is low on the bar and at a low percentile suggest relatively attractive buying or hedging opportunities compared with recent history.
- Periods where the current price is high on the bar and at a high percentile indicate the market is pricing that future strip richly, so you may want to be more cautious about locking in too much volume there.
PJM Ad Hub DA & Forward Trend Analysis
This chart shows that NYMEX natural gas prices over the next several years are relatively low compared with their recent trading range, but they remain volatile and tend to spike in winter months.
What the chart is basically saying
- It is a forward curve: each bar represents what the market today thinks gas will cost in a specific future month, based on NYMEX futures trading.
- The light blue “24M trading history” band around each month shows the range in which that contract has traded over the past two years, and the black line shows today’s price within that range.
- For many future months, today’s price is near the bottom of that 2‑year range (a very low percentile in the table), indicating the market is currently pricing gas on the cheaper side compared with recent history.
Big-picture energy market takeaway
- The curve gently rises over time and bumps up in winter (late 2026, 2027, 2028), reflecting expectations of stronger heating demand in cold months and the typical seasonal risk in natural gas.
- Because today’s prices sit near recent lows for many of those future periods (single‑digit to low‑double‑digit percentiles), the market is not currently forecasting a severe supply crunch; instead, it suggests adequate supply and only moderate risk premiums built in.
- For a business buyer, the practical implication is: forward prices are historically attractive right now, especially if you want to lock in budget certainty through the next several winters rather than gamble on future spikes.
