Moderate weather obscured a tight US natural gas market: analyst

Washington (Platts)--11Apr2005

Raymond James' chief energy analyst Marshall Adkins said Monday that the
natural gas market is tighter than it appears, as last year's moderate weather
kept gas storage levels higher than usual. "Weather has hidden the fact that
the US gas market is actually tighter than many believe," Adkins said. 

Adkins predicts that with normal summer weather, gas in storage will be 3 Tcf
by the start of the heating season in October, with normal summer weather
taking away the 200 Bcf from other analyst predictions calling for 3.2 Tcf by
October. Adkins bases part of his conclusions on data showing US gas supply
falling 0.5%, or 300,000 Mcf/d, going into summer. Demand, driven by gas-fired
power generation, likely will rise by 2%. "Last year's cool summer hid the
fact that natural gas-fired electric generation has captured a much larger
percentage of summer electric generation capacity," Adkins said.

This story was originally published in Platts Natural Gas Alert
http://www.naturalgasalert.platts.com

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