Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that we were enduring demagogues’ calls for governmental intervention in regard to increasing oil and gas prices?
Well, continuing a trend noted in this post from a week ago, the natural-gas contract for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $9.499 per million British thermal units during intraday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the first time that such contacts have settled below $10 since Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on Gulf Coast production facilities last summer. This represents almost a 40% decline from the Dec. 13 record. The market was undercut yesterday by an Energy Information Agency report that natural-gas volumes in U.S. storage actually rose last week, which is unprecedented during the last week of December.
Meanwhile, Clear Thinkers favorite James Hamilton is wondering whether the U.S. economy has faded the 2005 oil price shock and notes that there are some reasons to worry about energy prices in 2006.