Nat Gas Investment Heating Up as Supply Data Looms

Energy traders will be closely watching a Thursday report on natural gas inventories from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, as futures in the commodity continue spiking and energy concerns remain widespread in the United States.

Inventories are expected to climb 103 billion cubic feet when the data is released Thursday at about 10:35 a.m. New York time, according to a poll from Reuters.

New York Mercantile Exchange natural gas futures, shrugging off another sharp slide in crude, ended higher on Wednesday, backed by concerns about early storm activity in the Atlantic and warmer Northeast and Midwest forecasts.

In recent days, CNBC has gone to the experts about natural gas, as investing in the fuel gains greater interest.

Natural Gas vs. Crude Oil

"The supply-demand situation for natural gas has changed quite a bit, but actually it does look like that supply and demand are in relatively balance with a good amount of supply... Gas can go higher and will go higher."

- Arthur Gelber, Gelber & Associates

Energizing Your Portfolio

"In terms of value, there's basically a few themes that are investable. Obviously, in a high oil price climate the pure oil producers benefit a lot... But also there's a lot of moving parts in the gas side of business, where gas prices are now trying to keep up with oil prices and catch up because they've lagged. From that perspective the Asians are [consuming] a lot of gas, pushing prices up. So a company that would benefit there would be Apache , for instance, recontracting a lot of its far-Eastern gas at higher prices."

- Dirk Hoozemans, Robeco Asset Management

Curbing Oil Demand

"We have only one fuel in the United States that can compete with oil, can reduce the import. It's natural gas. No others can do it. You talk about ethanol, it's a joke. Ethanol will never amount to more than at the most 5 percent of all the oil used, or fuel used, in the United States. But the only fuel that can back out the imports is natural gas."

- Addison Armstrong, Tradition Energy

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