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And now ladies and gentlemen, for natural gas’s final trick… look, no storage!

The transition of North American natural gas from a high-cost, volatile-priced commodity to one that’s cheap and relatively stable has been remarkable. And it’s all happened in less than a decade.

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But the gaseous fuel has performed a final act, convincingly unveiling its latest feat this year: the diminishing need to store the product.

Only a few years ago it felt like every molecule of natural gas needed to be hoarded. Prices would strengthen every time volumes held in storage caverns would fall below the closely watched five-year average. Then, a simultaneous cold-snap on the East Coast would call keyboard-happy gas traders into action, driving up prices further.

Now, the weekly storage report elicits a big yawn. Recently, the collective volume of natural gas in caverns and holding vessels dropped to a 15-year low, “off the charts” as is proverbially said (see Figure 2).