After a relatively warm start to the 2024/25 winter heating season (November/March), colder-than-normal temperatures across much of the US in January and February resulted in more withdrawals from storage facilities than normal.
By the end of March, the lowest amount of natural gas was held in US underground storage in the Lower 48 states since 2022, with inventories 4% less than the previous five-year average for this time of year, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report.
Colder-than-normal temperatures across the country led to increased natural gas consumption in the residential, commercial, and electric power sectors.
A cold snap in the second half of January resulted in the fourth-largest reported weekly withdrawal from storage at 321 bill cu ft for the week ending 24th January.
Natural gas withdrawals in January and February combined totaled nearly 1,650 bill cu ft, or 33% more than the five-year (2020/24) average for those months, the EIA reported.
