According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,"natural gas for February delivery tumbled 19.7 cents to $4.23 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The 4.5% drop was the biggest one-day decline since May".
Still, natural-gas futures rose 26% this year, their biggest one-year rise since 2005 and the largest percentage gain for any commodity in 2013. After a relatively mild winter last year reduced demand for gas-powered heating in homes and offices, this winter started off unusually cold and wintry weather has persisted.
About half of all U.S. households use natural gas as their primary heating fuel, with natural-gas prices having climbed from less than $3.50/mmBtu in early November due to robust heating demand.
Unusually large amounts of natural gas have been withdrawn from storage in recent weeks, a sign of strong demand. Inventories as of Dec. 20 stood at 3.071 trillion cubic feet, 16% below the exceptionally high year-ago level and 9.2% below the five-year average for the week.
Colder-than-normal weather is forecast to continue in the next six to 10 days, especially in the Midwest and East Coast, key markets for natural-gas-powered heating, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC, a private forecaster based in Bethesda, Md.
