June 26, 2025

Course Correction Needed Immediately

U.S. gas storage is rising quickly (chart 801). At this pace, it will breach the weekly maximums of this century by the end of August.

In fact, if the present injection trajectory continues, gas storage could hit about 4.4 Tcf by mid November. Injections are tracking the five-year maximums (chart 411InjsAvgMax).

Simply lowering injections to the average trajectory will still mean gas storage could hit 4 Tcf. In order to achieve this, the System must find about 4 Bcf/d less injections immediately as compared to the present trajectory. The System has been on the high injection trajectory since mid March.

However, there are still no signs of any forces developing that could drive such a shift (chart RelSup12wk25). The surge in gas power market share that drove the last three summer low injection trajectories is absent this year due to displacement by coal power and renewables. The concern about gas power is that it could see more displacement than it is experiencing right now. Coal power is running below what we would expect to be normal levels for this part of the cycle. Coal mine output is running well above levels of last year and that could support another 2 Bcfe/d higher coal power output. Wind has underperformed this spring and nuclear output is just coming out of a prolonged maintenance period.