Crude oil prices have risen above US$70, a new high since the cyclical low in February. Natural gas prices have failed to participate. In February, the ratio between the price of one barrel of oil and one million BTU's worth of natural gas was 8 to 1. That gap has since widened to a ratio of 18 to 1. Can the natural gas market continue to be disconnected to crude oil prices?
Most analysts of energy commodities will concede that, in the short run, fundamentals have little to do with energy price futures. It used to be that whenever there was an extreme contango occurred in crude futures (an upward sloping curve in forward contracts or when forward contracts are trading much higher than the near-month), investors were correct to identify that the upward pressure in the near-month would eventually narrow the contango spread. Now, investors in futures appear to be betting that the same will occur in natural gas futures. Maybe ... and maybe not.
The crude oil market is much different than the North American natural gas market, especially while we are at the depths of an economic recession.
The crude oil world is dominated by a small number of countries that dominate exports of crude oil (i.e. OPEC, Russia, Canada, and Mexico). An even smaller number of countries are able to achieve significant growth in exports (i.e. a handful of OPEC members, Canada, and few others). Thus, OPEC's ability to balance the supply/demand fundamentals at any point in time can have a significant impact on average prices, despite the brief extremes we saw at the high last summer and the low this past winter.
Until about five years ago, the North American natural gas market was well connected to the crude oil price, because there was no unused capacity to increase production and the ability to grow production was quite weak. In fact, Canada's supply growth since 1986 represented over 60% of the incremental demand in U.S. over that period of time. And in 2005, Canada's supply growth peaked and has since been falling.
During the past five years, two new phenomena developed. Shale gas production in the Unites States, due to higher prices and new technology, caused U.S. domestic supply to grow rapidly, to all-time record levels.
At the same time, the capacity to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the United States was expanded to fill the expected gap from the decline in U.S. production. Now LNG has become a significant supply threat to North American producers during the summer months.
Excess supply of natural gas in the North American market is measured by the level of natural gas inventories, which are currently at record levels for this time of the year.
There are certainly positive signs that are driving the extreme contango in natural gas prices, when you look at winter contracts that are 50% higher than summer contracts. Commodity investors are looking at the collapse in U.S. rig activity which fell to 700 last week from 1600 last summer. They are betting on recovery in U.S. industrial activity. And they are looking at the disconnect between crude oil and natural gas futures.
However there are also signs that the commodity investors may be too early in their enthusiasm. Spot prices for natural gas (that's the physical market) are well below the near-month futures prices, indicating that excess supply could continue to keep prices low for the rest of the storage injection season at the end of October. In Canada, spot prices are below C$3.00 per thousand cubic feet or US$1.00 per thousand cubic feet lower than U.S. spot prices.
Equity investors can play the natural gas price turnaround story by buying shares in gas-weighted companies with strong balance sheets. High debt levels will be a significant drag on capital investing either until higher prices generate higher cash flow, or until investor bullishness allows companies to issue new equity.
Patience will be a virtue in this natural gas cycle.
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