These charts illustrate how the WTI forecast can help in planning energy futures prices several months ahead.  The verification charts for the northeast and the northcentral states show that WTI had forecast a cool start to winter; this ocurred when the bias in the market was skewed to the warm side.  The third chart highlights the monthly closing prices for crude and natural gas futures through the end of 2007.   Of course weather is not the only reason for this price increase in energy futures, but we can say with a high degree of confidence that prices would not have been at these levels if it were not for strong energy demand requirements at the start of winter. 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Energy, Global Commodities, Global Weather, United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.