Independence hub, the largest producing platform in the gulf, went down on April the 8th due to a leak in the flex joint connection to the mainline pipe that brings the gas onshore. The amount of gas offline is 900,000 MMBtu/day (.9 BCF/day) or roughly 10% of the entire gulf of mexico. Due to LNG imports being way down year over year and the loss of this domestic supply, the funds have had a green light to "own it". Enterprise Products Partners, the operator of the pipeline has stuck with a restart date by the middle of May, for weeks, and reiterated it again today. Well, this evening they have changed tune and now have pushed the restart of the platform out until mid-June. This is why prices have been running, and are running even further tonight. I predict we peak in price either on June settlement day (end of may), or first week of June.
Hey Bluestreek, you may notice that getting upset at a market rarely causes it to move in your favor. As for the fundamentals of NG, I personally think it should be a bit higher than current. As a side note, I'm not an ET regular, but I notice a lot more people posting/ranting outside their area of expertise lately. This forum used to be a great resource but seems to be diminishing somewhat due to this problem.