Natural gas futures fell sharply on Friday, with the November 2026 NYMEX contract shedding 12 cents to settle at $3.12 per MMBtu, finishing the week 10 cents lower. Selling pressure was particularly pronounced near the front of the forward curve, with the Winter 2026-27 strip declining 13 cents to $3.26 per MMBtu and the Summer 2027 strip falling 6 cents to $2.89. The winter strip finished the week 16 cents lower, giving back much of its recent gains despite a tightening storage balance and renewed concerns over Appalachian supply disruptions.
Friday’s selloff followed an update from Columbia Gas Transmission indicating that service on the Mountaineer XPress pipeline is expected to resume Saturday, October 17, following Wednesday’s force majeure declaration. The outage restricted approximately 1.9 million Dth per day of transportation capacity, but the prospect of a relatively short disruption has eased concerns about a prolonged reduction in Appalachian production. Meanwhile, Thursday’s EIA storage report showed a smaller-than-expected 67 Bcf injection, narrowing the inventory surplus to just 45 Bcf relative to the five-year average.
Despite this increasingly supportive storage picture, forecasts favoring above-normal temperatures across much of the eastern U.S. continue to weigh on expectations for early-season heating demand, limiting the market’s ability to sustain recent gains.
An archive of Daily Natural Gas Market Notes can be found here.