Natural gas rose in New York, rebounding from three sessions of declines, as a spreading winter storm in the U.S. Northeast boosted demand for the heating fuel.
Futures for March delivery added as much as 3.5 percent to $5.078 per million British thermal units in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and were at $5.018 at 12:19 p.m. London time, on Tuesday. The contract fell 0.8 percent to $4.905 yesterday, the lowest settlement in a week. The volume of all futures traded was about 13 percent above the 100-day average. Prices gained 19 percent so far in 2014.
Light snow that began falling in New York before 5 a.m. on Monday reached 8 inches (20 centimeters) in Central Park by 4 p.m., according to the U.S. National Weather Service.
“The next winter storm is ready to impact the Plains and Midwest with snow and ice Tuesday into Wednesday,” the weather service said on its website.
An estimated 49 percent of U.S. households use gas for heating, with the biggest share in the Midwest, according to the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s statistical arm.
U.S. gas inventories may drop to 1,198 billion cubic feet from a previously estimated 1,388 billion by the end of March, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said. Prices will average $4.50 per million Btu, up from $4.25, Samantha Dart, a London-based analyst at the bank, said.
The lower stockpile expectation is “largely driven by colder-than-average temperature forecasts for the first half of February,” according to the Goldman report.
