Natural Gas
SECTOR REVIEW
Reduce U.S. Price Outlook, But Current Low
Prices Not Sustainable Longer Term
■
Reduce U.S. Natural Gas Outlook: Along with the Credit Suisse Global
Energy team’s reduction in oil price forecasts today (see Oil Market Reboot:
“The Three Step Program” and Exhibit 2), we are also lowering our
2009/2010 and long-term NYMEX (Henry Hub) natural gas price outlook.
Our 2009 outlook is being reduced from $6.50 per MMBtu to $4.84 (Q1’09A:
$4.86, Q2’09: $4.75, Q3’09: $4.50, Q4’09: $5.25). The 2010 outlook is
reduced from $8.00 per MMBtu to $6.50 (Q1’10: $6.00, Q2’10: $6.25, Q3’10:
$6.75, Q4’10: $7.00). More importantly, we are making only a modest
adjustment to the long-term price, which is lowered to $8.00 per MMBtu from
$8.50. We remain constructive on long-term gas markets and would note
that we are not in the $6.00 per MMBtu long-term gas price camp (espoused
by many recently) as we don’t see sufficient cash flow and returns to
balance the market at prices in that range.
■
Look For Near-term Price Weakness on Current Glut: On a short-term
basis, weak demand trends, expected near-term rises in LNG and still
growing supply are resulting in a substantial gas market imbalance currently
(~5 Bcf/d). The worst of the imbalance is likely to last through the 2009 refill
season at the end of October, with weak cash prices and shut-ins expected
this summer. Storage refills are likely to be limited to an effective maximum
capacity of ~3.85 Tcf thus constraining refills. Meanwhile, limits to storage
builds could act as a positive later in the year as production begins to fall.
■
Market Tightening Expected in 2010: We see prices improving by Q2/Q3
2010 even without a demand improvement, as markets begin to reach
greater balance due to sharp onshore supply declines. In fact, we see peak
(November’08) to trough (Q4’10) onshore supply declines of ~7 Bcf/d (down
~13%) based on our revised trough natural gas rig count assumption of 690
(down from 950). We also note that we think that late-year 2010 prices have
an upward bias on any economic improvement given the expected supply
shortfall.