Word: crude
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...delve deeper, let's examine why gas prices have deflated so much: natural gas prices and oil prices are no longer bedfellows in our present economy. As crude oil has skyrocketed from about $30 per bbl. in December 2008 to more than $70, natural gas has plummeted from nearly $6 per million BTU to under $3, recently hitting a seven-year low. To put these numbers in perspective, this makes oil more than four times as expensive as natural gas to produce the same amount of energy, according to the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA). (Read "Clean Energy...
That's no reason to party. Here's why: unlike the global crude-oil market, the market for natural gas is incredibly localized. The U.S. produces nearly 90% of what it consumes, and the rest is imported from Canada or from overseas - the latter amounting to only about 2.5% of U.S. consumption. Thus, a glut of domestic gas doesn't really affect imports...
...quickly expand gas consumption. At this stage, anyone who can use natural gas instead of crude oil is already burning gas, as the price goes lower still. There is really only one other form of energy that natural gas will replace - coal. Yes, in some geographic areas, it is currently cheaper to use natural gas than coal. Shocking, right...
Take no comfort in that excess. Unlike crude, natural gas cannot be stored just anywhere we want; we also cannot transport it very easily. Gas is typically stored in underground reservoirs. The pressure of the gas and the type of reservoir can make injection and extraction cycles difficult and lengthy processes. Until traders see extra storage realized, the natural gas market will be priced in steep contango, meaning prices of natural gas for future delivery will hang far above the current price. The low prices now represent the abundance of unusable and potentially unstorable gas, a situation that will...
Just as in the case of crude oil, supply and demand do not paint the full picture. As of Aug. 24, the U.S. Natural Gas Fund, an exchange-traded fund listed as UNG on the NYSE, held about 10% of the contracts in the October 2009 futures market traded on NYMEX. Combine that position with its over-the-counter swap holdings, and UNG held the equivalent of more than 50% of the October contract's open interest. In following its plan to buy and hold natural gas, UNG keeps rolling its position into the next futures month. In other words...