The November 2026 NYMEX contract gained 12 cents on its final day of trading, expiring at $2.817 per MMBtu. While the contract recovered more than 30 cents from Monday’s intraday lows, it still finished more than 50 cents below its mid-October highs. The settlement was the lowest for a prompt-month contract since August and brought the average monthly settlement price for 2026 to $2.499 per MMBtu. December futures will take over the prompt-month position tomorrow at just above $3.00 per MMBtu. Elsewhere, the full Winter 2026-27 strip gained 3 cents to settle near $2.99 per MMBtu, while Summer 2027 held steady at $2.77 per MMBtu.
Weather continues to weigh heavily on the market, with forecasts calling for widespread above-normal temperatures well into November and little indication of a meaningful pattern change. The unusually mild outlook is expected to suppress heating demand during a period when consumption would typically begin ramping higher, leaving the market with little fundamental support for a sustained recovery. Meanwhile, Freeport LNG appears to have resumed normal operations following a brief outage, providing some support for feedgas demand. With December set to become the prompt-month contract, it will be interesting to see whether benchmark pricing can hold above the $3.00 threshold against a persistently bearish weather backdrop.
An archive of Daily Natural Gas Market Notes can be found here.