The October 2026 NYMEX futures contract fell for the second straight day, rolling off the board at $3.00 per MMBtu. This ends a period of highly volatile trading over the past five days that saw prices rally from last week’s lows near $2.82 to as high as $3.32 per MMBtu last Thursday before falling sharply over the past two trading sessions. The $3.00 expiration price represents the highest October settlement in four years and brings the 2026 year-to-date average to $3.57 per MMBtu, with 10 of 12 contracts now in the books. If that average holds, it would represent a modest increase over 2024 and the highest annual average NYMEX settlement since 2022.
The pipeline outage that helped fuel last week’s rally has been resolved, which should allow Appalachian production volumes to return to normal. Further, after a few days of unseasonable heat, temperature forecasts across virtually the entire eastern two-thirds of the country are calling for very mild weather over the next two weeks. Heat is expected to linger across the West, but national energy demand should fall toward seasonal minimums as the calendar turns to October.
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