Natural gas futures price strengthened on July 5 as participants increased their long position as seen from the open interest. The gas prices had surged Rs 18.9 or 7.29 percent last week on the MCX.
The energy price extended gains in the afternoon session after a gap-up start tracking positive global cues.
On the MCX, natural gas delivery for July soared Rs 1.40, or 0.50 percent, to Rs 278.90 per mmBtu at 14.28 hours with a business turnover of 19,844 lots.
Gas delivery for August jumped 1.50 percent to Rs 277.60 per mmBtu with a business volume of 2,028 lots.
The value of July and August's contracts traded so far is Rs 615.50 crore and Rs 42.39 crore, respectively.
MCX iCOMDEX Natural Gas Index rose 17.05 points or 0.50 percent to 3,397.39.
NS Ramaswamy, Head of Commodities, Ventura Securities Ltd said, “As per our last week’s view, MCX NATURAL GAS prices traded with the momentum on the higher side. We may see the trend to continue on the higher side and prices may cross the Rs 300 level in coming sessions. Any dip in the prices can be seen as an opportunity to create a long position in the counter.
He advised his clients to buy MCX NATURAL GAS JULY in the range of Rs 265-270 for the target of Rs 300-320 with a stop loss below Rs 250.
Kshitij Purohit, Product Manager, Currency & Commodities, CapitalVia Global Research Limited, said, “MCX Natural future will likely to continue its sideways to marginally bullish momentum and traders should keep an eye on buying opportunity around Rs 270, with the stop loss of Rs 265 for the targets of Rs 282-285.50”
The gas prices were supported by increased cooling demand as some parts of the United States reels under a heatwave and robust export demand.
In its weekly report, Baker Hughes said the number of rigs drilling natural gas in the US rose by 1 to 99 rigs for the week to July 2.
Technicals
The commodity has been trading higher than 5, 20, 50, 100 and 200 days' simple moving averages and exponential moving averages on the daily chart. The momentum indicator RSI is at 80.62, which suggests some pullback may take place in the price.
At 0906 GMT, the natural gas price was up 1.19 percent at $3.74 per mmBtu in New York.
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