09:29 AM EDT, 05/04/2022 (MT Newswires) -- Benchmark natural gas rose to a 14-year high early on Wednesday as forecasts expected a heat wave in Texas and the Southwest boosting cooling demand amid tight production and high exports.
Gas for June delivery was last seen up US$0.50 to US$8.45 per million British thermal units, the highest since August, 2008.
The rise comes as forecasts expect highs above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of southern Texas and the Southwest this weekend, raising cooling demand as supply remains tight.
Strong export demand on higher LNG shipments have also helped cut restocking of inventories depleted by winter heating.
"US gas stocks have hardly risen at all since the beginning of April and are now almost 20% lower than usual. This is attributable among other things to the high exports. Since 1 March, LNG has also been shipped from the seventh LNG terminal Calcasieu Pass. It is estimated that exports totalled around 0.7 billion cubic feet per day in April; according to the EIA, the entire baseload capacity of 1.3 billion cubic feet per day could already be reached in the third quarter. This would make the US the world's largest LNG exporter," Commerzbank analyst Barbara Lambrecht said in a note.
The Energy Information Administration will release its weekly report on US gas inventories on Thursday morning.