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Record Gas Storage Faces a January Offtake Rate 45 Percent Above the 2016-17 Winter

The Energy Information Administration's August 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook , released on August 11, puts one number at the centre of this winter's natural gas story. The outlook states that “we expect natural gas inventories to be a record 3,985 billion cubic feet (Bcf) at the end of October 2026,” a figure “which is an increase of 19 Bcf compared with the July STEO and 5% above the five-year average.” Ten years earlier the same commodity produced almost the same reading. On the EIA's weekly Lower 48 working gas series , the last October report of 2016, for the week ending October 28, recorded 3,963 Bcf. The two figures sit 22 Bcf apart, about half a percent. What changed is everything the stock has to be measured against. A stock figure is a numerator. On its own it is a volume, not a condition. This piece takes up a narrow question: when the numerator is flat across a decade and the denominator is not, which denominator should a reader use, and do the pl...
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