美國天然氣期貨周二下挫約5%，創下四周新低，因為產量飆升加上需求預測下降，拖累價格下跌，盡管庫存比五年來的標準低11%。

美國東部時間下午1點10分，美國天然氣下跌5.2%，至8.38美元。

在能源信息署（EIA）截至8月26日當周的最新報告顯示天然氣庫存增加610億立方英尺后，產量仍保持強勁。雖然這使庫存達到2640億立方英尺，但仍比去年同期的水平低2280億立方英尺。

促使庫存下降的原因還有位于墨西哥灣沿岸的關鍵的自由港液化天然氣出口工廠的停工。

這一停工意味著交易商正在計算每天約有20億立方英尺的天然氣沒有被自由港用于出口，而是留在了國內市場上。

占美國液化天然氣出口能力約20%的自由港似乎將繼續停產直到11月上半月。屆時可能看到的只是自由港產能的部分啟動，才能在該月月底前提升到全額產能。然而，自6月宣布不可抗力后，自由港已經多次推遲了重啟日期，然后又撤銷了由于不可抗力停產的聲明。

6月8日，自由港發生爆炸，導致工廠停工進行損失評估和維修。

9月份到目前為止，即使自由港停工，Refinitiv的數據顯示，美國液化天然氣出口工廠的平均抽氣量上升到112億立方米，高于上個月的平均110億立方米。

壽琳玲 編譯自 今日油價

原文如下：

U.S Natural Gas Futures Shed Over 5% On Soaring Output

U.S. natural gas futures shed around 5% on Tuesday, hitting a four-week low as soaring output coupled with lower demand forecasts drags prices down, despite the fact that inventories are 11% lower than their five-year norm. 

U.S. natural gas was down 5.2% at 1:10 p.m. EST, to $8.38.

Output is still holding strong after the latest report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the week ending August 26, which showed a natural gas inventory build of 61 billion cubic feet. While that brings inventory to 2,640 Bcf, it is still 228 Bcf below levels at the same time last year–heading into the winter season. 

Also prompting the decline is the outage at the key Freeport LNG export plant on the Gulf coast. 

That outage means traders are calculating some 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day that is not being consumed by Freeport for export and is remaining on the domestic market.

Freeport–which accounts for some 20% of U.S. LNG export capacity–looks set to remain offline until sometime in the first half of November, at which point we could see only a partial startup, ramping up to full capacity by the end of that month. Freeport, however, has already pushed back a restart date several times since declaring force majeure–and then revoking it–in June.

On June 8, Freeport suffered an explosion, causing the plant to shut down for damage assessment and repairs. 

So far in September, even with the Freeport outage, Refinitiv data showed a rise in the average volume of natural gas being pumped into American LNG export plants to 11.2 Bcfd, up from the average of 11 Bcfd last month.