The November gas futures contract is currently trading at $3.55, $0.04 lower than it settled yesterday. The 12 month strip is trading at $3.92 /MMBtu and this year's winter strip (Nov 11 - Mar 12) is trading at $3.81/MMBtu.

The November gas futures contract will expire tomorrow. We will update you with that settlement price in addition to our new variable rates for November once it settles.

Cornell Greenhouse Gas Paper Disproven, Again

The science keeps bouncing back and forth on whether or not Natural Gas, when extracted from shale is actually worse for the environment than coal. The basic argument is that when you include all the elements of production from well-head to burner-tip, shale gas actually emits more greenhouse gases than coal.

The science is now indicating that the initial study released by Cornell was not true, did not use credible data, and made numerous poor assumptions.

University of Maryland: "Arguments that shale gas is more polluting than coal are largely unjustified."

Carnegie Mellon University:"We don't think [Cornell] is using credible data"

U.S. Department of Energy: "[The Cornell study] found a large fraction of produced gas from unconventional wells never made it to end users, assumed that all of that gas was vented as methane, and thus concluded that the global warming impacts were huge. As the [Dept. of Energy] work explains, though, 62 percent of that gas isn't lost at all - it's 'used to power equipment.'" 

Weather Update

The hurricane season continues with Hurricane Rina. This could potentially be the last hurricane of the year, but the hurricane season doesn't officially end until November 30^th.

Like most other storms this year, Rina is not expected to affect any natural gas production.

Storage Update

Working gas in storage was 3,716 Bcf as of Friday, October 21, 2011, according to EIA estimates. This indicates a net increase of 92 Bcf from the previous week.

Stocks were 28 Bcf less than last year at this time and 158 Bcf above the 5 year average.