Mind the Gap: Widening Natural Gas Storage Deficits Create Urgent Summer Challenge

After back-to-back warm winters, this year’s brutally cold showing has rapidly depleted Lower 48 natural gas inventories, flipping them from surplus to deficit and creating a challenging outlook for the upcoming injection season. With storage now sitting below five-year averages and record LNG exports consuming more supply, the market faces a steeper climb to rebuild stocks amid caution by producers to bring on more supply. A hot summer could siphon gas away from injections to make the task harder. NGI’s Leticia Gonzales, managing director of North American natural gas pricing, and senior markets editor Chris Newman examine the market’s dramatic shift from surplus to deficit, producers’ restraint despite higher prices, and the impact of structural LNG demand growth on domestic markets. They also look ahead to how the evolving market fundamentals could shape gas prices through summer and into winter 2025/26.