Total 2012 marketed natural gas volumes in the US are roughly flat with 2011 levels, according to a Platts analysis of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Form 552 data.
As of Friday, gas marketers reported 125,723 trillion Btu of purchases and sales for 2012, compared with 125,868 TBtu reported for 2011, according to the data, which includes submissions from several large gas marketers that were not available when Platts initially analyzed the data earlier this month. That preliminary analysis indicated that marketed volumes would rise about 1% from 2011.
Platts estimates that, based on companies that filed in 2011 or 2010 but have yet to submit their information for 2012, approximately 1,000 TBtu to 1,300 TBtu more could potentially be added to the 2012 total.
If traded volumes from these companies are similar to the prior period, the total amount of marketed gas for 2012 would be about 0.5% above 2011 levels.
The largest year-over-year shifts occurred in the next-day gas markets. Companies reported a total of 19,695 TBtu of physical fixed-price trades, down 7.8% from 2011's 21,351 TBtu, according to the data. Deals tied to daily gas indexes reported by price publishing agencies, such as Platts, rose 8.4% in 2012 to 34,146 TBtu, compared to 31,494 TBtu the previous year.
In the monthly gas market, physical fixed-price purchases and sales dropped 2% in 2012 to 6,030 TBtu, while physical basis transactions declined 1.3% in 2012 to 8,650 TBtu compared with 8,765 TBtu. Deals tied to monthly gas indexes totaled 54,496 TBtu, roughly flat with 2011's total of 54,642 TBtu.
As of Friday, a total of 665 companies had filed their 2012 Form 552 data with FERC, down from 2011's total of 704. In 2012, 82.71% of companies did not report to price publishers, according to this data.
While the total amount of so-called "indexable" gas declined 5.2% year-over-year to 34,375 TBtu, the percentage captured by index publishers rose. In 2012, companies that reported to index publishers, according to FERC filings, comprised around 55% of total indexable deals; by comparison, in 2011, this figure was around 52%.
Indexable volumes include those with negotiated fixed-price pricing in the next-day market and negotiated fixed-price or negotiated physical basis pricing tied to the NYMEX futures contract in the monthly market.
Form 552 is intended to track day-ahead and month-ahead physical gas volumes, measure the market's reliance on spot indexes and determine the size of the overall gas market. Physical traders must file if their reportable purchases total 2.2 TBtu or more for the year or if they operate under a blanket rate certificate.
