Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Prices 2005

For the week (Wednesday to Wednesday), the spot price at the Henry Hub rose $1.15, or about 8.5 percent, to $14.67 per million British thermal units (mmBtu).  The Henry Hub price was $6.89, or 89 percent, above last year's level of $7.78.  Two factors that contributed to this week's price increase were space-heating demand from cool temperatures and the large volume of production that remained shut in from the recent hurricanes.  Offshore platforms were evacuated again in the advent of Hurricane Wilma although the shut-in gas volume increased very little.

The amount of natural gas in storage in the East Region increased 2.7% for the week ending October 21 to 1,868 billion cubic feet which was 40 billion cubic feet above the 5-year average.  Nebraska is a part of the East Region (see map) which is a major natural gas consumer, particularly in the residential and commercial sectors.  The industrial sector, which includes agriculture, is also a major consumer in this state.  Most of the gas is supplied from the Producing Region with a fair amount imported from Canada.  The Henry Hub in southern Louisiana is a major market center with interconnections for many of the pipelines that transport U.S.-produced gas to the East Region.  Furthermore, the Henry Hub is the preferred reference point for prices for most of the domestic gas destined for the East.  Therefore, market conditions and developments in the East Region and price movements and trends at the Henry Hub are usually highly correlated.

Notes:  An archive is available.  Divide the price by ten (10) to obtain the price per hundred cubic feet (ccf) or the approximate price per therm.

Sources:  Natural Gas Weekly Update.   Energy Information Administration, Washington, DC.  Nebraska Energy Office, Lincoln, NE.

Note:  NA = Not available.

This table was updated on October 31, 2005.  Typically, there is one week between updates.

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