Last week. Henry Hub +6.1% (+$0.185) to $3.220/MMBtu. Open $3.019, high $3.298, low $2.997, close $3.220.

Last week. $TTF (ICE Endex) +8.9% (+EUR 6.67) to EUR 81.43/MWh, about $26.7/MMBtu. Open EUR 76.35, high EUR 81.93, low EUR 72.06, close EUR 81.43.

“We don’t expect Qatar LNG coming back to the market soon.” - Yukio Kani, chairman and CEO of Jera, on Bloomberg TV, 2 October 2026

Articles

• US natgas prices rise to two-week high (Reuters via Business Recorder)

• Bundesbank Chief Warns Germany Over Low Gas Storage

• Hormuz risk sends Chinese buyers back to US LNG (Jack Prandelli on X)

• ConocoPhillips signs 20-year LNG deal with Venture Global

• Qatar LNG Exports Through Hormuz Reach Seven-Month High (MEES)

• Why Qatar’s LNG Exports May Take Years to Recover From the Iran War

• Hormuz LNG Flows Still Down More Than 75% Despite Rebound

• Europe’s January Test: The Russian LNG Ban Meets the Hormuz Winter

• ENSO Diagnostic Discussion, 8 October (NOAA CPC)

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Gas is leaving the energy pages. Last Monday the Bundesbank’s president singled it out as a key vulnerability for euro-area inflation. Europe is trying to survive a winter on a thin tank, while a fifth of prewar global LNG supply sits behind the war. Every buyer with money is now hunting the same thing, a molecule with no choke point on its route. Call it the safe molecule. Last week it cost about $27 in Europe and about $3 in Louisiana.

Germany is running on fumes

Germany’s storage sites were only around 59% full last Monday, the lowest for the season in records back to 2009, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said. GIE has them at 59.8% on 10 October, 27 points under the five-year average. The market gave nobody a reason to fill them: near-term gas traded above winter delivery, so the usual summer-to-winter premium that pays a trader to store was missing. Berlin, having waited for the market to do it, ended up ordering state-owned SEFE to add 8 TWh by 15 December, Oilprice reported.

Across the EU, storage was 73.6% full on 10 October, 15 points under the five-year average and below the lowest of the last five years for the date, according to GIE AGSI+. ENTSOG warned in its winter outlook that if LNG stays limited, EU storage could fall well below 30% by the end of winter. Low inventories mean Europe has to buy substantially higher volumes in winter, competing with Asia for the same cargoes. A thin tank turns every cold front into a price event.

The storm took supply, not demand

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Isaias, the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season, shut in about 1.1 Bcf/d of Gulf gas as of Thursday, EIA reported. By Friday afternoon more than half of Gulf output was offline, which took Lower 48 dry gas output to 109.3 Bcf/d, the lowest since January, according to Barchart citing BNEF. It came ashore on the Florida Panhandle that night as a Category 2 hurricane, NPR reported, and Friday’s feedgas numbers show the export plants kept running. The Gulf is only about 2% of US supply, so the storm alone could not move the balance. Isaias made the headlines; the pipeline outages did the quiet damage. Force majeures on pipelines in Kentucky, Texas and West Virginia had already pulled October output to 111.2 Bcf/d from 113.3 in August and September, Reuters reported.

Demand wobbled before supply did. Feedgas to the nine big US LNG plants averaged 16.9 Bcf/d in October through Thursday, against 17.9 Bcf/d in September, as a Freeport train shut and Cove Point went into annual maintenance, Reuters reported (via Business Recorder). Friday’s single-day flow was 19.2 Bcf/d, according to BNEF, so the dip was maintenance, not weaker demand. Demand is back at the plant gates. Supply is the part that blinked.

That squeezed a market that was already leaning short. Henry Hub rose five sessions in a row, about 10%, into Thursday’s storage report, Reuters noted. The bigger-than-expected build knocked it back only about 1%, to a $3.168 settle after a $3.298 intraday high, and Friday’s storm took it back to $3.22. So why is Henry Hub up 6% on a week with a bigger-than-expected build, a warm outlook and a surplus still near +68 Bcf? Supply shrank just as feedgas recovered, and the funds were already leaning short. A bearish print that lasted one session says which side the pressure sits on.

Qatar: the number that matters

How much has actually come off? A lot, and after a brief September rebound it is getting worse again. MEES counts at least 1.4 million tonnes of Qatari LNG through Hormuz in September, the best month since the war began and about a fifth of the 6.6 million tonne pre-crisis monthly average, after August passed without a single laden Qatari tanker transiting. Kpler’s September export figure is 1.6 million tonnes, according to Modern Diplomacy, because it includes cargoes bound for Kuwait inside the Gulf. Kpler projects October at 0.6 million tonnes, about 9% of the old run rate, as strikes on shipping rise.

Do not expect a snap-back. Qatar was the hedge, and it sits behind the strait. About 17% of Qatar’s export capacity was damaged by Iranian missiles and repairs may take years, Modern Diplomacy noted, and the healthy part needs a strait ships trust, not one that is only occasionally open: Kpler counted 21 LNG cargoes out in September against roughly three a day before the war, OilPrice reported. QatarEnergy has extended force majeure to November for Asia and December for Europe, The National reported.

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Russia has a deadline too

The other door has a date on it. From 1 January 2027 the EU’s ban on long-term Russian LNG contracts takes full effect, midwinter, and the Commission has said EU firms won’t be able to buy, sell or ship Russian LNG anywhere once it does, according to Modern Diplomacy. It was built to be hard to unpick: passed by qualified majority as a trade measure, with one valve, a suspension of up to four weeks if an emergency is declared, which in this market is not a high bar. Russia is still the EU’s second-largest LNG supplier, about 17% of imports in 2026 against about 60% for the US, AFP reported from ENTSOG’s outlook. The EU takes about three quarters or more of Yamal LNG’s output, so roughly 15 Mt a year, about 2 Bcf/d, has to find another home, close to a tenth of US feedgas. The ban has been law for a while, so the surprise risk is in the valve, and Jera’s Kani named it as a reason he expects spot prices to rise. Hormuz is a risk to the supply. The ban is a decision.

Insurance, priced off Henry Hub

The buyers know it, and they are buying the long end. Venture Global is in early talks with at least three Chinese importers, PetroChina among them, for Louisiana gas, Bloomberg reported, and ConocoPhillips took a 20-year, 1.0 Mt a year deal on 1 October, starting in 2030. That would revive a trade that has been dead since Beijing put a 15% tariff on US LNG in February 2025, according to analyst Jack Prandelli’s thread, which also has China’s total LNG imports down 19% in July. A Louisiana contract is priced off Henry Hub and faces no Hormuz and no ice. This is a long-dated signal, not this week’s price, and the catch is the tariff, which Prandelli says was left off China’s first list of cuts, so buyers can sign paper all day while the gas stays in Louisiana. Contracts are insurance. Cargoes still need a treaty.

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Weather and the winter

No help for the bulls yet. NOAA’s 6 to 10 day outlook, issued 11 October for 17 to 21 October, has above-normal temperatures across much of the Lower 48, with odds above 50% in the West and Northern Plains and only the Eastern Seaboard and parts of the Southern Plains leaning cooler. LSEG has total Lower 48 demand easing from 106.6 Bcf/d this week to 104.0 next, Reuters reported. The bigger swing factor is El Niño: NOAA’s 8 October update has it still strengthening, with a better than 83% chance of a strong to very strong event through January to March, which tilts the US toward a milder winter. Brussels will be praying for a warm one too.

EIA Storage

The 85 Bcf build for the week ending 2 October beat the 79 Bcf analysts expected. A year ago the build was 77 Bcf and the five-year average for the week is 96 Bcf, according to Reuters. Stocks reached 3,500 Bcf, 68 Bcf (2.0%) above the five-year average and 130 Bcf below a year ago. The build was big against the forecast but small against the seasonal norm, so the surplus shrank for an eighth straight week, from +198 Bcf on 7 August. The leak is slowing again: -30, -23, -16, now -11. The winter number matters more: analysts polled by Reuters on 28 September had storage ending October at a three-year low of 3.841 Tcf and ending March at a five-year low of 1.780 Tcf, against a five-year average of 1.859. Bigger than expected, smaller than normal: the surplus is still bleeding. More in the EIA Gas Inventory.

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The Net Net

Last week’s question was what the winter looks like. This week the market started charging for the answer.

TTF: higher into winter, with a sharp way down. A German tank at 59%, an EU average near 73%, Qatari exports on course for 0.6 million tonnes in October, and a Russian ban on 1 January leave Europe with no spare exit on any of its routes. At about EUR 83 it is at a three-year high, and with Asian demand soft and JKM little changed on the week there is slack, but not much of it. The downside is a single headline: a Hormuz deal, a mild El Niño winter, or a four-week suspension of the ban would each take a chunk off the winter premium, and fast. The lean breaks if TTF closes back under EUR 75, roughly the 2 October close, because that would say the market is pricing a deal.

Henry Hub: range-bound with a bid under it. Last week it traded between about $3.00 and $3.30. Output is about 2 Bcf/d under its August peak. A storm took more of it offline, feedgas is back near 19 Bcf/d, and funds hold their largest net short in at least a year, so the first cold front is a squeeze risk. The lid is a warm outlook and a surplus that is still +68 Bcf. With TTF about $24 over Henry Hub and OIES putting the cost of delivering US LNG to north-west Europe at just under $8 with Henry Hub at $3, every plant that can run is running: the limit is capacity, not demand.

The curve already prices the winter: January settled at $3.97 against $2.67 for April, and EIA’s October STEO has January near $4.01. A close above $3.30 would say the squeeze is on, and one below $3.00 would say the storm premium is gone. Another plant outage or Gulf storm would take export demand away again.

Calendar: EIA storage on Thursday 15 October (3:30pm Irish); the CFTC COT every Friday; Kpler’s October Qatar export numbers in early November; the next Qatar force majeure decision around 28 October; NOAA’s next ENSO update on 12 November; and the EU Russian LNG ban on 1 January.

Below you get the COT for NYMEX Henry Hub, then Trade.

Commitment Of Traders Report

$NG: Funds are max short. MM pressed shorts +2.8% (+10k) and trimmed longs -0.8% (-1.8k), taking net short to -145k. That’s 98.6% crowded on the short side, within 1.3k of the two-year extreme, and their shorts are at 97.6%. The Swappies are on the other side, net long 228k at 99.5%, the biggest dealer length in two years. Looks to me like end users are locking in winter gas through the banks and taking every lot the funds sell. Storage is only 2% above the five-year average, so I don’t see much cushion under that short. I’ll want to watch for the first cold snap, because a book this one-sided covers fast.

Tor Cot Henryhub 2026 10 06

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$TTF: Price is running without the funds. TTF is at a 52-week high at €84 and up 14% on the week, yet funds trimmed net length -3.5k GWh to 161k, bang in the middle of their range at 49.5%, with longs washed out at 10%. The crowded trade is the hedgers: commercials are net long 220k GWh at 92.8% and cut -32k this week, while the banks covered -35k of shorts alongside them. Looks to me like the winter hedge is starting to come off before the funds have even turned up. If this rally holds, they have room to chase.

TRADE

I feel a short squeeze coming on!

That’s the report!

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