BS: Natural Gas Futures Slide as Forecasts of Colder Weather Fade
Natural gas futures dropped in New York for the first time in three days as weather forecasts for late December and early January turned warmer.
Gas slid as much as 3.7 percent after Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland, predicted mostly normal temperatures in the eastern half of the U.S. from Dec. 29 through Jan. 2. Yesterday’s outlook was for colder-than-average weather in those regions.
“The weather forecast is becoming as volatile as the price,” said Dominick Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute in New York. “The temperature outlook became much less supportive and the market just started selling.”
Natural gas for January delivery fell 12.3 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $3.295 per million British thermal units at 9:04 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The futures are up 10 percent this year, heading for the first annual gain since 2007. Prices declined to $3.261 per million Btu in intraday trading on Dec. 14, the lowest since Sept. 28.
To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Buurma in New York at cbuurma1@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net
