Natural gas futures declined on the day, giving back some of yesterday’s gains to end the week’s trading. Despite the relatively large loss, the October 2026 contract ended the week $0.28 per MMBtu higher than last Friday’s settlement while the upcoming winter strip gained $0.12 on the week. The October contract is set to expire at the close of trading on Monday, officially ending Summer 2026 natural gas futures trading.
Yesterday’s news of a Force Majeure declaration by TCO helped fuel a short-covering rally that saw the largest daily price movement since January for the prompt-month contract. Market participants appeared to consider yesterday’s movement an overreaction based on today’s price action, with futures sliding throughout most of the trading day with no major change in the underlying fundamentals.
At this point in the year, temperature forecasts will likely have a limited impact on pricing as both cooling and heating demand near their seasonal nadir. Within the next two to three weeks, however, temperature forecast maps that maintain similar anomalies to those below should have a decidedly bearish impact on pricing as warmer temperatures delay the onset of the heating season.
An archive of Daily Natural Gas Market Notes can be found here.