US natural gas futures on Wednesday climbed to their highest in over a week as forecasts for warmer weather over the next two weeks is expected to boost air conditioning demand. Front-month gas futures rose 5.7 cents, or 1.9 percent, to settle at $3.058 per million British thermal units, their highest close since September 1.

Thomson Reuters projected US gas consumption would rise to 72.5 billion cubic feet per day next week from 67.9 bcfd this week as the weather warms and air conditioning demand picks up. Demand this week, however, was down from the 69.3 bcfd seen last week because Hurricane Irma reduced power consumption in Florida and the rest of the Southeast.

About 4.2 million customers, or almost 9 million people, were without power on Wednesday morning in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas after Hurricane Irma, down from a peak of over 7.8 million customers on Monday, local utilities said. Irma hit southwestern Florida on Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm, the second most severe on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. It had weakened to a tropical depression on Monday.

In the past 30 days, US gas production in the lower 48 states rose to an average of 73.1 bcfd from 71.5 bcfd a year earlier. That was still far short of the 74.3 bcfd during the same time in 2015, when output was at a record high, Reuters data showed. US exports were expected to average 8.5 bcfd this week, up 13 percent from a year earlier now that the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Louisiana has stepped up deliveries since Hurricane Harvey, according to Reuters data.

Analysts said utilities likely added 85 billion cubic feet of gas into storage during the week ended September 8, leaving inventories a little above normal for this time of year. That compares with a 58 bcf build the same week a year ago and a five-year average build for that week of 63 bcf. Utilities probably would stockpile 1.7 trillion cubic feet of gas during the April-October injection season, analysts said. Relatively low output, rising sales abroad and higher-than-average cooling demand earlier this summer have limited the amount of fuel going into storage this year. The projected build, which is below the five-year average of 2.1 tcf, would put inventories at around 3.8 tcf at the end of October, below the year-earlier record of 4.0 tcf and the five-year average of 3.9 tcf.

Copyright Reuters, 2017