From staff reports Just as temperatures dipped and the brisk winds brought a chill to Oklahoma last week, the government predicted natural gas prices are likely to be higher for the rest of the winter heating season.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects the average price of natural gas for the remainder of the winter heating season to be about 40% higher than the November spot price, despite expectations that U.S. natural gas inventories will remain higher than average throughout the winter. Although the price increase is notable, recent U.S. natural gas prices have been at near or record lows, and the increase will keep prices in line with previous end-of-winter prices.
The United States started the winter season with 6% more natural gas in storage than average, and EIA forecasts in its December Short-Term Energy Outlook that natural gas inventories will remain 2% above the five-year average at the end winter.
“Recent natural gas prices have been historically low, so a colder winter than last will draw on storage and raise prices to some extent,” said EIA Administrator Joe DeCarolis. “We expect natural gas prices will remain well below the high prices we saw in 2021 and 2022.”
EIA expects U.S. benchmark Henry Hub natural gas spot prices to increase from just above $2 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in November to an average of about $3/ MMBtu for the rest of the winter heating season.
The EIA also predicts that U.S. net imports of crude oil will decline by more than 20% in 2025 to 1.9 million barrels per day, the least net imports of crude oil in more than 50 years, since 1971.
Net imports of crude oil in the U.S. this year have remained close to 2023 volumes, with increasing U.S. crude oil production supplying an almost equivalent increase in U.S. refinery runs.
“We expect U.S. crude oil production will continue increasing in 2025 even as U.S. refiners process less crude oil than they did this year,” EIA reported.
The EIA anticipates that the U.S. will be the world’s top producer of crude oil this year for the seventh consecutive year. Led by 34 publicly traded oil companies, U.S. crude oil production during the first eight months of this year averaged a record high of 13.1 million barrels per day, the agency reported.
Increasing well productivity, primarily because of advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies, has been a key driver in America’s crude oil production growth, according to the EIA.