Natural gas prices drop

Rainer Seele, the chief executive of Austrian energy firm OMV, says that he needs a good amount of extreme cold weather to power up the profits at a time when natural gas prices have plunged to historic lows.

“Honestly speaking, if I have one wish for free, please send me an ice blizzard for the gas prices,” Rainer Seele told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.

Rainer’s comments came shortly after the oil and gas group conceded lower commodity prices had squeezed profits in the final three months of 2019, reflecting an industry-wide trend, as reported by CNBC.

On Friday, Natural gas prices traded at around $1.86 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) adding up around 0.1% on the session. The commodity has descended 30% below where it traded a year earlier — and tumbled nearly 15% since the start of 2020.

In Asia, the benchmark Japan-Korea-Marker (JKM) spot price for liquefied natural gas (LNG) closed at $3.00 MMBtu which is an all-time low and that’s for the second consecutive session on Thursday, according to data provided by S&P Global Platts.

It seems that the coronavirus outbreak has started making an impact on the LNG prices, too.

“The coronavirus outbreak is not fundamentally changing the direction of the LNG market. It was already weak and heading in this direction,” Ira Joseph, global head of power and gas analytics at S&P Global Platts, stated in a research note.

(Reference: CNBC)

(Image source: Reuters)