The fellow discussing 15$ may be spot on, or way off base, but his opinion remains valid.

Futures prices do not "forecast" prices in the future, not in the sense I believe you may thinking. To some degree futures do anticipate what may happen down the road. For example - winter futures prices for NG will always be higher than late spring prices. The "future" price changes as buyers and sellers compete with their own understanding, beliefs and expectations.

Like all markets, in any futures market, price trends form as higher swing highs and lows are set (in an up trend) or lower swing highs and lower swing lows are printed on the chart (in a down trend). Traders live and die by their ability to detect when price is trending, when it is not, and the strategies they employ to exploit the direction / presence, or lack thereof, of trend.

When price starts off with higher swing highs and lows, and continues higher, you can expect higher prices in futures contracts down the road.

Will we? Its entirely possible.

Consider this: NG prices have never been at these levels in the summer.

Prices we see today typically show up only in Nov/Dec / Jan/Feb, depending on weather and supply.

Whether or not the analyst quoted in the article is a trader, he is on the right track. All that is needed for his opinion to become reality is a) a continued tight gas market and b) cold weather.

"a" seems to be upon us already, even before the impact of Katrina, "b" is a total unknown.

Having said all this, I have to say that NG prices have run up so far and fast that the typical price reaction - all these other factors (hurricane, supply etc) aside, we'd normally see profit taking create at best a pause and retracement of some sort, or at worst a complete reversal.

Given the underlying issues in the North American NG market - for all intents and purposes a domestic market (no OPEC to the rescue here) - we can expect that any reversal here - even if sharp for a period of time - is very likely to be short lived and these high prices will be seen again.

At that time, as traders test the waters, price may then head higher.

The worst case outcome: price barely moves down and in fact uses the recent gap as a launch pad for another leg up. I've seen this happen in other runaway markets.

Ultimately price will get so high that serious problems hit the economy and price will then crash, but frankly, what are people going to do - freeze to death? Or put off buying that Xbox at Christmas...?

Recession is the outcome if prices head higher, bank on it.

But oil is also a major factor in NG pricing via the NG:Oil BTU ratio effect. The BTU content of each fuel, expressed as a ratio, has a fairly direct relationship to the price of NG.

This happens, in part, because its a convenient way to look at the 'value' of the fuel, but also because some industrial users (and electricty producers) are "dual fuel" capable -- able to switch between oil or NG depending on which is cheaper per BTU output.

Therefore, if oil stays high or higher, NG will tend to as well.

But the laws of supply and demand are not thrown out simply in favour of a ratio. If weather is mild, electricity demand does not overly lean on gas , and stocks remain high - NG will come in somewhat lower despite what oil does.

Absolutely right. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that this may be the worst hurricane season on record; 9 of the past 11 years are above average; there may be another decade of above-normal actitivites. And that's the assessment from people who don't think gloabl warming has had much effect yet.

Hegding does influence prices, but most oil companies are hedging against DECLINES in prices, which means they are SELLING future contracts, in order to lock in gains.

When there is more SELLING pressure than BUYING pressure, prices go DOWN.

That's a bit simplistic, but in general, we could probably walk away assuming that hedging programs by oil and gas PRODUCERS are not themselves pushing prices higher.

Lets not forget there or hedgers on the CONSUMING side.

Refiners,
Airlines,
Industrial users,
Fuel wholesalers,
etc.

Most of the big users of petro-chemical / fuel products have hedging programs - they are buyers, and are protecting againt price increases - the other side of the coin.

And then, somewhere in the middle of all this, you have speculators.

There are those that try to identify the impact of the pure speculators -- those that will never take delivery of the product and are there just because its a big market to trade -- but surely there is far more speculative activity now than five years ago.

My take is they do add something to the price premium but I rather doubt they are as big a factor as some think. Regardless... it doesn't matter... price is the price. WHen it gets too high, according to the concensus of the herd, sellers come in and price heads lower. And vice versa.

The last few years various reasons (other than the obvious) have been given for why price has continued to trend higher and in my view, none of them are satisfactory. First it was the terror premium. Then Iraq. (not these are almost never talked about these days).

The only one that really makes sense is supply and demand, and the expectation that the balance is getting tighter. If these are not the peak oil times, its a good preview of what it will look like.

In the short term -- news often creates "spikes" and this price increase may be a short term spike and the high of the year, soon to come down... but only if they get substantially all the refineries back on line quickly.

(or a fleet of gasoline-laden supertankers shows up on our doorstep asap)