Natural Gas Price Forecast – Henry Hub Tests the $3.00–$3.50 Floor After $7.50 Winter Spike

Natural Gas Futures Price – Henry Hub fights to build a floor around $3.50 after a $7.50 spike

From $7.50 blow-off to $3.50 consolidation – what’s really driving Natural Gas Futures Price now

Natural gas front-month Natural Gas Futures Price (Henry Hub, NG=F) is trading around $3.50–$3.55 per mmBtu after one of the most violent winter swings in years. In late January, the contract exploded above $7.50 on the back of an Arctic blast, then collapsed roughly 57% between January 29 and February 2, giving back most of that move in less than a week. Before that spike, January had already printed a low near $3.01, so the market has effectively travelled from $3.01 to above $7.50 and back to the $3.50 area in roughly two weeks, a range of more than 145% peak-to-trough. That kind of range is not a normal winter adjustment; it is a full leverage reset.

The current quote near $3.51 marks a modest 1–1.5% gain on the day, but the bigger story is the structure: natural gas is now sitting just above a long-watched $3.00 floor that has acted as a base since mid-2025, while still trading below every major moving average on the daily chart. The market is trying to turn a weather shock into something more sustainable, but technical resistance is stacked tightly overhead.

Storage shock: record-scale 360 bcf draw, inventories flip from surplus to deficit

The latest EIA report for the week ending January 30 printed a massive 360 bcf withdrawal, leaving working gas in storage at 2,463 bcf. That single week took inventories from roughly 5% above the five-year norm to about 27 bcf below that benchmark, swinging the balance from “comfortably loose” to a small deficit in one move. Market consensus going into the report centred around a 374 bcf pull, with some early chatter for the following week already converging near a 249 bcf draw, so the 360 bcf print came in slightly lighter than the most aggressive forecasts but still in record-territory magnitude.

Fundamentally, that means late-January demand didn’t just tighten the market at the margin – it erased months of cushion. At the peak of the cold wave, estimates suggest fundamentals were squeezed by roughly 20 bcf per day, combining lost production and surging heating demand. That daily stress, multiplied across the week, is exactly what produced a 300+ bcf print and locked in the perception that U.S. gas is no longer swimming in excess.

Despite that, the price reaction after the release told a different story: a good part of the “record draw” narrative had been priced during the run from $3.01 to above $7.50. When the 360 bcf figure finally hit the tape, Natural Gas Futures Price did not launch into another vertical leg; it nudged higher and then settled back into the $3.20–$3.60 band. The record draw mattered, but by the time it became official, the futures curve had already traded the shock.

LNG exports and Cheniere’s 24 mtpa expansion push structural demand higher

On the demand side, the most important structural support for Natural Gas Futures Price is LNG, not domestic heating. Feedgas flows to the big U.S. export facilities sit around 18.3 bcf per day so far in February, up from roughly 17.8 bcf per day in January and close to record highs seen late last year. That incremental 0.5 bcf per day is material when you layer it over already-tightened storage.

At the same time, capacity is being prepared for another leg up. Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi expansion plan targets an additional 24 mtpa of LNG output, which would require around 3.3 bcf per day of extra feedgas once fully ramped. The company has flagged a target for federal approval by around May next year and openly framed the project as part of a race with other exporters to reach 100 mtpa of U.S. LNG capacity. If those numbers translate into steel in the ground and cold commissioning, domestic gas will be increasingly locked into export flows rather than sitting in storage.

Gas-linked equities already reflect both the opportunity and the risk. Cheniere shares were down roughly 2% in the latest session, producer EQT slipped around 1%, Venture Global traded lower by about 1.5%, while regulated utility Atmos Energy – which benefits from rate-base growth and less commodity directional risk – edged 0.6% higher. The U.S. Natural Gas Fund ETF added close to 0.8%, tracking the modest front-month rebound. The equity tape is telling a straightforward story: the mid-stream and export build-out is real, but the commodity path to monetising that build-out is still volatile.

Extreme spot price spikes expose infrastructure risk and upside tails

The recent deep freeze also showcased how fragile regional pricing can be when infrastructure is stressed. One major European-based producer disclosed that roughly 30% of its U.S. gas exposure was left tied to spot during January, and some of those molecules cleared above $100 per mmBtu into the New York region at the height of the storm. Those prints are not sustainable baselines, but they are a reminder that once pipeline constraints and local demand collide, the upside tail of Natural Gas Futures Price is far more explosive than the calm $3–$4 band suggests.

For portfolio managers and risk desks, those events are a clear argument against complacent short positions built purely on long-term oversupply narratives. Even if the strip looks well-supplied on an annual basis, regional spikes can shred short gamma very quickly, particularly when storage is no longer 5% above average but sitting slightly below.

Technical picture: rising channel from $3.01, but still trapped under the $3.59–$3.74 ceiling

Technically, Natural Gas Futures Price has carved out a rising channel off the January low near $3.01. That low confirmed a longer-term trendline with a third anchor and established the lower boundary of an upward-sloping price channel. The recent flush to around $3.16 tested that lower boundary again and held, reinforcing the idea that the $3.00–$3.20 band is the line the market is not yet willing to surrender.

On the upside, the structure is straightforward and unforgiving. The 200-day moving average sits near $3.59, while the 50-day and 100-day exponential averages cluster higher around $4.06. The recent rebound stalled below a weekly high of $3.74, which now functions as a pivot: only a sustained daily and weekly close above $3.74 would signal that demand has enough strength to break the channel’s upper half and start targeting the next resistance zones.

Within that channel, symmetry defines the roadmap. Initial resistance shows up in a band around $4.59–$4.69, where prior swing congestion aligns with channel geometry. Above that, the December peak at roughly $5.50 and the January blow-off high near $7.44 emerge as more distant targets. Without a clean move through $3.74 and then $3.59–$4.06, talking about $5.50 or $7.44 is just noise.

Volatility regime: 140% surge, 57% crash and 30-day vol at new highs

The behaviour of Natural Gas Futures Price over the last month is exactly what you expect when a market transitions from complacency to an event-driven regime. From January 20 to January 28, the front month rallied roughly 140%, fuelled by increasingly aggressive weather revisions and a scramble to cover short positions built on the “cheap gas forever” thesis. Once the cold peak passed, the contract gave back about 57% of that gain between January 29 and February 2.

That round-trip punched 30-day futures volatility to fresh highs, and the options market repriced the cost of protection accordingly. For anyone looking at directional trades now, that means the carry cost of being wrong has gone up materially. Longs and shorts alike are paying up for insurance, and that in itself can dampen follow-through until the next clear catalyst hits.

The $3.00–$3.20 floor: structural support or just a pause before $2.80?

Price is now oscillating in a relatively tight band between roughly $3.20 and $3.60, with the psychological $3.00 mark acting as an anchor. That $3.00 handle has been tested several times since mid-2025 and has not broken decisively, which gives it credibility as a structural floor. The latest correction from $7.50 stopped well above it at $3.16, reinforcing the idea that dip-buyers are willing to step in before the absolute round number is on the screen.

At the same time, the broader trend is still technically bearish: Natural Gas Futures Price remains below its 200-day average around $3.59 and well under the $4.06 cluster of medium-term EMAs. Unless the contract can reclaim the $3.70–$4.00 zone, the current pattern looks more like a consolidation within a downtrend than the start of a new bullish cycle. If $3.20 fails and $3.00 is finally surrendered on a weekly close, the next logical destination sits in the $2.80–$3.00 region, where prior congestion and valuation arguments would likely attract fresh hedging and speculative buying.

Weather, production and the tug-of-war between fundamentals and charts

Fundamentals and technicals are currently pulling in opposite directions. On one side, storage has flipped from a 5% surplus to roughly a 1% deficit versus the five-year norm, LNG feedgas flows are near record highs at around 18.3 bcf per day, and late-January storms demonstrated how quickly demand can overwhelm pipeline and storage systems. On the other side, weather forecasts point to warmer-than-normal temperatures across large swathes of the U.S. into mid-February, and Lower-48 production sits near 106.4 bcf per day.

Translated into Natural Gas Futures Price, that means every bearish weather run is immediately sold into by those betting on “too much supply,” while every bullish revision is pounced on by those who just watched a move from $3.01 to above $7.50. The result is a market that feels bid around $3.00–$3.20, but heavy above $3.70–$4.00, with direction dictated day-to-day by updated weather maps and the next EIA print.

Linked equities: LNG exporters, producers and utilities as collateral signals

Gas-linked stocks provide an additional lens on how the strip is perceived. Cheniere’s roughly 2% decline on the day, EQT’s just-under-1% slide and Venture Global’s ~1.5% dip point to some risk-off positioning after the winter fireworks, even as export fundamentals improve. Atmos Energy’s 14.5% jump in quarterly profit – driven by its distribution and pipeline businesses – shows how regulated utilities can monetise gas infrastructure without taking full exposure to Natural Gas Futures Price volatility.

For directional views on the commodity, these equities matter. Persistent weakness in LNG exporters alongside resilient or rising regulated utilities would signal that the market is questioning the durability of high exports once winter demand fades. If LNG names start outperforming again while Natural Gas Futures Price holds above $3.20, that would be a strong tell that the curve is starting to discount structurally tighter balances into the medium term.

Short- and medium-term verdict on Natural Gas Futures Price – cautious bullish bias off $3, but not a conviction long above $3.50

Taking everything together – the 360 bcf record-scale withdrawal that pushed storage to 2,463 bcf and 27 bcf below the five-year average, the 20 bcf per day late-January squeeze, LNG feedgas climbing to around 18.3 bcf per day, production near 106.4 bcf per day, the violent range from $3.01 to above $7.50 and back to $3.50, the rising channel off the January low with support near $3.16, and the stacked resistance at $3.59, $3.71, $4.06 and then $3.74 on a weekly basis – the profile of Natural Gas Futures Price is clear.

At current levels around $3.50–$3.55, the risk/reward skew is mildly constructive but not clean. The $3.00–$3.20 band looks like a legitimate structural floor as long as storage remains slightly below normal and LNG exports stay near record utilisation. A weekly close below $3.00 would flip that view and open downside toward $2.80. On the upside, bulls need to clear $3.74 and then hold above the 200-day average near $3.59 to unlock targets in the $4.59–$4.69 band, with $5.50 and $7.44 reserved for scenarios where either weather or geopolitics deliver another shock.

On balance, that makes Natural Gas Futures Price a Hold with a cautious bullish bias off the $3.00 floor rather than a high-conviction Buy at $3.50. The asymmetric opportunity sits closer to $3.00–$3.20, where downside to roughly $2.80 is limited compared with upside back toward $4.50–$5.50 if the technicals and fundamentals align again. Above $3.50, the tape is still digesting a 140% surge and a 57% crash, and until the contract proves it can sustain trade above $3.74 and $3.59, any aggressive long exposure is fighting both heavy overhead supply and an options market that now prices volatility at a premium.

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