Henry Hub Natural Gas Spot Prices 2005

Prices at the Henry Hub fell this week although prices remain near record levels for this time of year.  For the week (Wednesday to Wednesday), the spot price at the Henry Hub plummetted $3.83, or more than 26 percent, to $10.84 per million British thermal units (mmBtu).  The Henry Hub price was $3.96, or 58 percent, above last year's level of $6.88.  Prices fell each day through Tuesday and then recovered somewhat on Wednesday.  Possible factors that impacted prices were moderate temperatures, decreasing injection demand for natural gas, falling crude oil prices, and the ongoing restoration of natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico.  Injection demand may be falling since some storage facilities may be reaching capacity constraints.  Shut-in natural gas production fell to 5.04 billion cubic feet as of Wednesday from its level on the previous Wednesday of 5.56 billion cubic feet. 

The amount of natural gas in storage in the East Region increased 0.8% (14 billion cubic feet) for the week ending October 28 to 1,882 billion cubic feet which was 30 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 November 3, 2005.  Typically, there is one week between updates.

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