NG Week Ahead: El Niño Mildness Meets a Maxed-Out LNG Bid
Natural gas futures rose 3.5% to near $3 last week despite a widening storage surplus, as strong LNG exports offset a mild El Niño start to the heating season.
By NatGas Central
House view
Same as the 1 Nov postWeekly posts use five words: and Cautious lean lower, Balanced is neutral, and Constructive lean higher. The daily report’s calls use Bullish / Bearish / Neutral, and its colours use supportive and pressuring for the same direction.Weekly posts use five words: and Cautious lean lower, Balanced is neutral, and Constructive lean higher. The daily report’s calls use Bullish / Bearish / Neutral.
Last Week in Natural Gas
December natural gas futures () climbed 3.5% on the week, settling Friday, November 6 at $2.998 after a soft Monday slipped the contract to $2.856. The real lift came Wednesday, November 4, the week’s largest move at +2.2%, as light production estimates and durable LNG demand outmuscled a bearish weather map. Thursday’s EIA release then printed a +77 Bcf injection for the week ending October 30, short of the +81 Bcf consensus but still a seasonally stout build, and the contract drifted 0.4% lower on report day as traders weighed the miss against a surplus that kept widening. working gas reached 3,801 Bcf, 54 Bcf (1.4%) above the 2021-25 average and 109 Bcf (2.8%) below year-ago levels, with South Central adding 40 Bcf and the Pacific posting a 1 Bcf draw. Friday’s 1.7% pop came on colder forecast revisions and put December on the doorstep of $3. The backdrop stays heavy: the August-October printed +2.46, is still strengthening, and early November has run exceptionally mild across the northern heating markets.
The Week Ahead
Thursday, November 12 brings the EIA report for the week ending November 6, and the setup points to another injection running above the seasonal norm after mild weather kept heating demand off the board in early November. The same day, NOAA’s monthly ENSO update lands; with El Niño forecast to peak around December, any upgrade in strength hardens the warm northern-tier winter thesis. The curve already expresses that view in two directions: January carries a steep premium over December, pricing back-loaded cold, while March and April trade at a deep discount. That makes January the most exposed contract if the mild pattern holds as December heads toward its late-November expiry. The upside wildcard is the stratosphere. An early disruption threatens cold into the East in late November or early December, and Friday’s bounce shows how fast the tape reprices on colder model runs. Underneath, LNG runs near terminal capacity with Golden Pass ramping and European buyers chasing cargoes ahead of a heavy 2027 refill. That sets a floor that rising production tests but has not broken.
In Plain English
Natural gas prices firmed up last week, rising about 3.5% to just under $3, even though the country is storing more gas than usual for this time of year. An unusually mild start to November has kept furnaces quiet across the northern states, so extra supply is going into storage instead of homes. Forecasters expect a strong El Niño, a warming of Pacific waters that tends to bring milder winters to the northern U.S., to peak around December, which could help keep heating bills in check. What is holding prices up is demand from overseas: U.S. export plants are shipping gas abroad nearly as fast as they can, and that pull could lift prices by next summer.
How this is written
Written each Sunday from the week’s seven daily outlooks and the week’s public market news, under the rules on our Method page. Questions: info@natgascentral.com
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