htxag09 said:

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txaggie_08 said:

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They had layoffs in July.

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Some teams did. I thought other teams were told Q4 but I haven't heard anything about them.

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Yeah, that's what I heard too. It's been quiet, but I don't want to ask my friends so close to the holidays. I'm sure they're stressed enough as it is.

3rdGenAg05 said:

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htxag09 said:

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txaggie_08 said:

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They had layoffs in July.

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Some teams did. I thought other teams were told Q4 but I haven't heard anything about them.

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Yeah, that's what I heard too. It's been quiet, but I don't want to ask my friends so close to the holidays. I'm sure they're stressed enough as it is.

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I know that many had to apply for a select pool of jobs. I think the "hiring" for these remaining jobs was spread out so there wasn't much of a single mass layoff event but rather just people finding out over time they weren't hired for the position they were asked to apply to.

bp appoints a new CEO. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/bp-appoints-meg-oneill-ceo-2025-12-17/

October for the rest. All wrapped up.

What a mess.

She definitely made some acquisitions but was also known as a micromanager. Good luck to bp.

ag94whoop said:

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We need oil back to $80 and natural gas to about $6 and I would be happy

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On an energy content basis $80 oil implies $13 gas. That would necessarily have to assume fungibility of both for the other, the ability of industry to consume either, infrastructure able to transit both etc etc etc. All very far from today.

With that being said, we are closer today to all of those things than we ever have been and will probably be closer tomorrow than today.

Obviously I know that I am making a thermal equivalence but I would be willing to bet the the market moves toward physical reality over time versus physics moving toward the market. Given the amount of recoverable gas in the world, you could start to see scenarios in which $80 oil is probably more of a ceiling than a comfortable spot to trade.

Intersting given that just two years ago most projections showed oil with an $80 floor and expected average in the $90s and $100s.
And when oil was $110 gas never exceeded $8 if I remember correctly. I might be wrong but I've been tracking for personal reasons for years

Yeah 15:1 - 30:1 ratio has been much more common and likely to be that way for the near future.

My comment has a lot longer timeline attached to it. I think over time we'll have lower highs and lower lows - especially if you measure prices in terms of gold. My idea goes to hell if you consider sustained high inflation over time.

Is the sustained drastically lower cost (relative to COL) based on all the increased production from OPEC or some other factor? When everything else has risen 25-40%, oil has dropped 30%, resulting in a relative to market $ value drop of about 50%. I am not understanding how that follows any traditional market trends.

The irrational exuberance in the early 2020s around green technologies superseding all oil and gas sources was premature. BP getting back to basics with a renewed focus on its traditional hydrocarbons operations. Good for them

Check the press release from yesterday on RECAF. 1300 feet of hydrocarbons w oil on the pits throughout the drilling. Multiple pay zones. Anticline 20 miles by 5 miles. Play opening discovery in Namibia w 11 million acres under license

ThreeFive said:

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It's Flywheel.

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Baytex announced that it expects to close the previously announced sale of its U.S. Eagle Ford assets on December 19. Baytex Energy Corp.

no announcement yet - think it will be official today?

I have a tiny percentage of Eagle Ford land that has been drilled by ConocoPhillips. For the first time in I don't know how long, they have told us that they have NO plans to drill on any of our properties in 2026 or 2027. At these prices, I guess I can't say that I blame them.

Re SM Energy and Civitas merger - article here

https://www.hartenergy.com/energy-market-transactions/he-anatomy-of-a-deal-sm-energy-civitas-resources/?utm_source=hart-energy-daily-wrap-up&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20251218


Wonder who that bidder was that almost won but SM got it done Here are some details


Civitas had spoken to five other potential merger partners since January 2023, but only one had made an offertwiceand sent away each time.

In July 2025, Civitas got in touch again and gave B access to a virtual data room in September. B made an "alternative structure" deal offer Oct. 9 that Civitas did not describe.

Having only the offer from B, besides one from SM, Civitas' board decided to keep the door open and not "formally disengage" with B yet.

NG back up to $4.65 today with the cold weather in the East.

Ain't called the widow maker for nothin'.

Ag CPA said:

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NG back up to $4.65 today with the cold weather in the East.

Ain't called the widow maker for nothin'.

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That's January 2026 contract. Feb 2026 is at 3.95 and March 2026 is at 3.34.

Pretty significant backwardation. Either price is going to roll downward over the next month or two, or something even crazier is brewing and there's going to be a lot of trapped shorts.

Quote:

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Storage Deficit Replaces Surplus as 166 Bcf Draw Resets the Five-Year Benchmark
The single most important fundamental shift for Natural Gas this month is in storage. The latest weekly withdrawal of 166 Bcf from U.S. working gas inventories for the week ending December 19 erased what remained of the surplus versus the five-year average and flipped stocks into deficit. That 166 Bcf pull compares with just 98 Bcf during the same week last year and a five-year average withdrawal of around 110 Bcf, underscoring how quickly balances have tightened once real winter demand arrived. Traders had been positioned for another heavy draw, with consensus near 168 Bcf, but the key is not the small miss versus estimates; it is the structural turn from surplus to deficit in a single three-week sequence of oversized pulls. With inventories now below the five-year trajectory, every additional cold week compounds the risk of a tighter end-of-winter cushion, particularly if draws remain above seasonal norms.

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Natural Gas Price Forecast: NG=F Rebounds to $4.65 as 166 Bcf Storage Draw

Today's session is gonna see HH trade ~.40 backward to Feb. Market still doesn't seem too worried about inventory levels.

I'd say so. Serious correction in less than one day!

Here's front contract to next contract ratio going back 10 years.



Every single peak you see from the smaller ones to the larger ones was either the last trading days od December or January. Only two of them came in February. None after that.

It's pretty clear front contract is going to fall against next contract. Now that can happen in multiple ways..

Front contract falls and next contract rises
Front contract falls harder than next contract which also falls
Front contract rises but next contract rises harder
Front contract is flat while next contract rises
Front contract falls slightly and next contract is flat

Also, history shows we're likely talking about current front contract (Jan) compared to current next contract (Feb). But there are a couple historical instances where it will be Feb vs March.

There are a couple strategies one could employ.

Sell Jan futs and buy Feb futs
- If they both rise, you will likely make more from Feb rising than you would lose from Jan rising.
- If they both fall, you will likely gain more from Jan falling than from the likely smaller fall in Feb
- There is still massive risk here if it is a timeline that stretches to the Feb/March contracts. That risk would be Jan rising more than Feb does. So perhaps you add a leg and buy March as well, or sell Jan and just buy March.

Yellow lines point to the last two end of year periods with white being front continuous contract and blue being next continuous contract forward.

Thanks, Heineken. TBH, I don't fully understand all that. Is there a link that explains commodity trading contracts in plain English? I'd like to know more, just because I'm curious. I've been in this industry for almost 13 years and I know almost nothing about how commodities trade, just a little about how macro factors affect pricing.

If you're in Houston, maybe I could buy you lunch or a beer to help me make some sense of it all after the holidays.

I'm far from a commodity trader. Mostly just a chart watcher who deals with commodity traders.

Long story short, each commodity has futures contracts with specific beginning, ending, and delivery dates. They aren't the same for all commodities. The arbitrage trades around contract rollover events and the preparation for them garner a lot of volume and attention. We're talking companies, industries, institutional traders, and retail speculative traders. For natgas, we are in the time of the year where demand is usually high and supply gets tested. Hence the front contract (the one currently being traded and soonest to expire) premium above later dated contracts.

Most of commodity trading deals in what's called contango. That's where later dated contracts trade at a premium due to inflationary expectations of future price. When later contracts are cheaper, that's called backwardation. It usually indicates massive spikes in demand or significant supply crunches in the present, sometimes both. Where sooner delivery is much more costly than a delivery from a longer dated contract that has time to fall back into normalcy or even contango. Natgas is fairly predictable that there will be some level of backwardation this time of year due to winter heating demand.

Happy to discuss further. Just know, I don't know much of anything of the O&G world. I operate in the trading world. So I'm forced to seek my commodity specific info from trusted sources, which is why I love this thread.

Thanks. Good info to start.

Are the prices I see on Bloomberg, WSJ, and the like front contracts? Ie January 2026, using today as an example or does every site vary in how far out they report?

3rdGenAg05 said:

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Thanks. Good info to start.

Are the prices I see on Bloomberg, WSJ, and the like front contracts? Ie January 2026, using today as an example or does every site vary in how far out they report?

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Use this

Natural Gas Futures Contracts - Investing.com

Short answer, yes. It's the front month.

This might be easier to follow.
Henry Hub Natural Gas Futures Quotes - CME Group

NG futures have a different code for each month. When you click on Heineken's link and see NGG6, that's Feb26. Could be written as NGG6 or NGG26.

Month Code
January F
February G
March H
April J
May K
June M
July N
August Q
September U
October V
November X
December Z

If you want to see when each contract expires and we roll to the next, here's a helpful link: Energies Futures Expirations Calendar - Barchart.com

HouAggie said:

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Short answer, yes. It's the front month.

This might be easier to follow.
Henry Hub Natural Gas Futures Quotes - CME Group

NG futures have a different code for each month. When you click on Heineken's link and see NGG6, that's Feb26. Could be written as NGG6 or NGG26.

Month Code
January F
February G
March H
April J
May K
June M
July N
August Q
September U
October V
November X
December Z

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Good info. Just tell us when it's going to spike.

techno-ag said:

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HouAggie said:

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Short answer, yes. It's the front month.

This might be easier to follow.
Henry Hub Natural Gas Futures Quotes - CME Group

NG futures have a different code for each month. When you click on Heineken's link and see NGG6, that's Feb26. Could be written as NGG6 or NGG26.

Month Code
January F
February G
March H
April J
May K
June M
July N
August Q
September U
October V
November X
December Z

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Good info. Just tell us when it's going to spike.

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It will spike just after all the Haynesville producers decide to hedge.