The Platts pre-report analyst survey suggests US EIA data will show a 121- to 125 Bcf withdrawal in natural gas stocks
Washington - February 3, 2010
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is expected Thursday to report a net withdrawal of 121 to 125 billion cubic feet (Bcf) from natural gas storage for the week that ended January 29, according to a Platts survey of analysts.
A drawdown within expectations would be well below the 194-Bcf withdrawal in the corresponding week of 2009 and the five-year-average of 178 Bcf, according to EIA. As a result, both the120-Bcf surplus over last year and the 87-Bcf surplus over the five-year-average are projected to expand.
Beyond the consensus, the wider range of analyst expectations spanned from withdrawals of 90 to 135 Bcf.
Martin King, analyst at FirstEnergy Capital, said temperatures started to cool off last week in some key gas-consuming regions, which bolstered demand mid-week.
"Noteworthy was that pipelines in several locations last week were running into the opposite problem of early January: too high linepack instead of too low,” King said. “This would have helped to put a damper on storage draws as well, as shippers would have drawn down gas in the pipes before making incremental calls to storage."
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This analyst survey is conducted by Platts’ editorial team in Washington DC and is published every Wednesday morning, one day ahead of the 10:30 am (EST) Thursday release of the weekly natural gas storage report of the US Energy Information Administration. Platts has been conducting this survey since January 2007. IMPORTANT NOTE TO EDITORS: The survey results attached above do not contain commentary from a Platts staff member. The survey is conducted and prepared by the Platts market news editors, but the views are those of non-Platts market analysts. The survey includes 15 to 25 analysts, some on a rotational basis. This differs from the weekly pre-report analyst survey of EIA/API US oil stocks data conducted each week by Platts Senior Oil Analyst Linda Rafield, which does include the views of Platts’ oil analyst Linda Rafield.
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