Last Week in Natural Gas
The front month spent last week grinding higher, settling the back half in the low-$3.20s and closing up several percent on the week. The bid came from the demand side: cooling load ramped hard as the first real heat of a confirmed El Niño summer pushed power-sector gas burn well above its early-June base. Forecasters see weekly storage injections collapsing under the five-year pace once July arrives, tightening a balance that still carries a surplus of roughly 150 Bcf to the five-year average. The ceiling held, though. Production stayed resilient near record levels, the curve kept only a thin premium between the front two contracts, and the global pull eased after progress on a US-Iran deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz dragged European TTF prices lower. On the macro front, the latest reading put the ONI at +0.48 for spring 2026, up from -0.55 late last year, with the El Niño Advisory now firming toward Super strength and tilting the whole back of the curve warm.
The Week Ahead
The week pivots on Thursday’s EIA storage release, which covers the week ending June 19. Consensus looks for another injection that tops the five-year norm, but the number that matters sits a few weeks out: builds are projected to shrink hard once July opens, and any early sign of that turn will firm the front. The July contract rolls off the board around June 26, handing the prompt to August just as the West and Gulf bake under an active heat-dome regime that keeps cooling demand elevated. Watch the next ENSO update for confirmation that El Niño is still tracking toward Super strength; the same signal underwrites a below-normal Atlantic hurricane season, with the named-storm outlook trimmed near 11, stripping out supply-disruption premium the market usually carries into late summer. The curve still prices a healthy November heating premium that a warm-winter lean undercuts, so the live tension is front-end heat strength against a back end the El Niño story keeps structurally heavy.
In Plain English
For everyone outside the trading pit, the takeaway is simple: natural gas prices firmed up last week as summer heat arrived and power plants burned more gas to keep air conditioners running. Supply remains plentiful and storage tanks are fuller than usual for this time of year, which is keeping a lid on how high prices can climb. The bigger story is winter. Forecasters are increasingly confident that a strong El Niño — a periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean that tends to bring milder US winters — is taking hold, pointing to a warmer-than-normal heating season. That would mean weaker demand and softer prices later this year.