Natural Gas Market Note | 08.14.2026
Prices flat to lower heading into the weekend.
Natural gas futures finished the week mixed, with the front of the curve holding relatively steady while winter prices slipped modestly. September 2026 added a penny to settle near $2.73 per MMBtu and finished the week $0.07 higher, while Winter 2026–27 lost $0.02 on the day to close near $3.41. Further out, movement was limited, with most strips changing by a penny or less. Despite some strength earlier in the week, the broader market remains largely rangebound, with winter pricing still sitting near multi-year lows.
Lingering heat across Texas and the Southeast should keep cooling demand elevated into the second half of August, but the strongest anomalies are increasingly concentrated away from major Midwest and Northeast population centers. At the same time, storage inventories have expanded to nearly 200 Bcf above the five-year average following yesterday’s larger-than-expected 36-Bcf build. Domestic production has also shown renewed signs of growth, with recent daily estimates approaching 113 Bcf per day. That additional supply could help offset an expected recovery in LNG export demand this fall, leaving the market well supplied as the summer cooling season begins to wind down.
An archive of Daily Natural Gas Market Notes can be found here.