North America gas weekly update: Peak storm season

Given the timing in the season, its landfall location, and relative power, one could be tempted to make comparisons between this year’s Hurricane Ida and 2005’s devastating Katrina. Thankfully, Ida has not wrought nearly as much damage as her predecessor. Due to structural changes in the natural gas market, her influence on energy has been different, as well. • Much Gulf of Mexico production is shut in, but usual operating level is about five times less these days, exerting much less influence on the market. • Hurricanes generally disrupt more of the demand side now, and outside of power outages across New Orleans and Baton Rouge, much demand remains largely unscathed. Unless downstream constraints reveal themselves in the restart, the decline of CDDs and power markets should dictate how big upcoming storage injections are.