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Snodgrass: winter weather conditions could impact natural gas prices  

A principal atmospheric scientist says a colder winter could impact natural gas prices.

Eric Snodgrass is with Nutrien Ag Solutions.

“Anything that could change the demand side of that equation given what’s going on with supply globally is going to be an issue, so from my perspective it’s all about how cold winter could get,” he says.

Snodgrass tells Brownfield he’ll be watching to see if the north Atlantic Ocean produces a ridge of high pressure over Greenland and Iceland.

“If it’s there, it’s not over Europe and the eastern part of the United States. So, what that means is the eastern U.S. and Europe could have cold spells this particular winter and there’s risk of that happening,” he says. “Given how tight supply is, if you increase the demand that could be a major kick in the markets that we don’t want to see right now.”

He says there are several risk factors heading into winter.

“I’ll be watching that carefully. It’s very warm in Europe right now but remember it’s still fall. I’m talking about December, January, and February as being the time period to be worried about,” he says. “We’ll also have to bring back that terrible term polar vertex at that point and discuss what it’s doing. We have a lot of risk factors going forward that are going to require some special attention given how tight things are.”

Brownfield interviewed Snodgrass during the recent National FFA Convention and Expo.