U.S. and Canadian natural gas prices soar during arctic freeze
Feb 8 (Reuters) - Natural gas prices across North Americasoared on Monday as homes and businesses cranked up theirheaters to escape a blast of arctic air and snow moving fromCanada to the U.S. Midwest.
"This blast of cold air will likely settle in for multipledays to come," meteorologists at AccuWeather said.
High temperatures in Chicago were expected to remain belowfreezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius) fromFeb. 5-22, AccuWeather said. The normal high in the city at thistime of year is 34 degrees F.
That cold air will move to the East Coast later this weekwhere it could drop up to a foot (30.5 centimeters) of snow onparts of Pennsylvania, New York and New England that havealready been blanketed by more than a foot of snow over the pastweek or so.
Next-day gas for Monday rose to its highest since December2018 at the Waha hub in the Permian basin inTexas where some producers were forced to pay others to taketheir gas when prices turned negative in October.
That was before Kinder Morgan Inc's 2.1-billion-cubic-feet-per-day (bcfd) Permian Highway and WhiteWaterMidstream/MPLX LP's 1.8-bcfd Agua Blanca gas pipes inTexas entered service in January, which helped free up much ofthe gas trapped in the Permian shale region.
One billion cubic feet is enough gas to supply about fivemillion U.S. homes for a day.
Spot prices in other regions, meanwhile, soared to theirhighest since March 2019, including the AECO hub in Alberta, Dominion South insouthwest Pennsylvania, Chicago and the Henry Hubbenchmark in Louisiana.
(Reporting by Scott DiSavinoEditing by Paul Simao)
