Jan 24 (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures were little changed on Tuesday as bearish forecasts for less heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected offset a bullish drop in output as cold weather starts to cause wells to freeze in some producing basins.

The market also is balancing bullish comments from Freeport LNG that its liquefied natural gas export plant was ready to begin the restart process versus bearish expectations that it will still take a lot of time for that plant to actually exit the seven-month outage.

Freeport LNG, the second-largest U.S. LNG exporter, said on Monday that it had completed repairs to its plant and asked U.S. regulators for permission to take early steps to restart the fire-idled facility.

Those steps involve cooling certain pipes - a process Freeport said would take around 11 days - after regulators' approval. After that pipe cool down process, Freeport said it would go back to regulators to seek permission to start the liquefaction trains that turn gas into LNG.

Freeport's request meets the company's last estimate in December that the plant would be ready to commence initial restart activities in the second half of January, pending regulatory approvals. But it also favors what some sources have told Reuters - that Freeport was on track to actually restart in February or later.

Analysts have long said it would likely take until the first or second quarter of 2023 before Freeport could restart due to the large amount of work needed to satisfy federal regulators. That is why analysts were not surprised when Freeport delayed the plant's planned restart from October to November to December and most recently to January.

Freeport is important because the market expects gas prices and demand to rise once large amounts of pipeline gas starts flowing to the plant. The facility, which shut in a fire on June 8, 2022, can turn about 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas when operating at full power. That is about 2% of U.S. daily production.

Front-month gas futures for February delivery were down 1.4 cents, or 0.4%, to $3.433 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 8:41 a.m. EST (1341 GMT).

Traders said the biggest uncertainty in the market remains when the Freeport plant will return.

Even though vessels have turned away from Freeport in recent weeks, several tankers were still waiting in the Gulf of Mexico to pick up LNG from the plant, including Prism Diversity since around Oct. 28, Prism Courage since around Nov. 4 and Prism Agility since around Jan. 2 and Corcovado LNG since around Jan. 22.

In addition, other ships were sailing toward Freeport, with both Prism Brilliance and Kmarin Diamond expected to arrive around Jan. 29.

U.S. GAS OUTPUT RISING

Data provider Refinitiv said that average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states has risen to 98.7 bcfd so far in January, up from 96.7 bcfd in December. That compares with a monthly record of 99.9 bcfd in November 2022.

On a daily basis, however, output was on track to drop about 1.7 bcfd to a preliminary three-week low of 97.4 bcfd on Tuesday as cold weather starts to cause wells to freeze - known as freeze-offs in the energy industry - in some producing basins like the Bakken in North Dakota, the Rockies in Colorado, the Permian in Texas and Appalachia in Pennsylvania.

With colder weather coming, Refinitiv forecast U.S. gas demand, including exports, would jump from 130.1 bcfd this week to 139.0 bcfd next week. Those forecasts were lower than Refinitiv's outlook on Monday.

Week ended Week ended Year ago Five-year

Jan 20 Jan 13 Jan 20 average

(Forecast) (Actual) Jan 20

U.S. weekly natgas storage change (bcf): -78 +82 -217 -185

U.S. total natgas in storage (bcf): 2,742 2,820 2,622 2,601

U.S. total storage versus 5-year average +5.4% +1.2%

Global Gas Benchmark Futures ($ per mmBtu) Current Day Prior Day This Month Prior Year Five Year

Last Year Average Average

2022 (2018-2022)

Henry Hub 3.59 3.45 4.26 6.54 3.60

Title Transfer Facility $(TTF)$ 19.00 21.31 28.25 40.50 14.39

Japan Korea Marker (JKM) 23.26 22.82 28.53 34.11 14.31

Refinitiv Heating $(HDD.UK)$, Cooling $(CDD.AU)$ and Total $(TDD)$ Degree Days

Two-Week Total Forecast Current Day Prior Day Prior Year 10-Year 30-Year

Norm Norm

U.S. GFS HDDs 480 490 508 430 435

U.S. GFS CDDs 3 3 2 4 3

U.S. GFS TDDs 483 493 510 434 438

Refinitiv U.S. Weekly GFS Supply and Demand Forecasts

Prior Week Current Week Next Week This Week Five-Year

Last Year Average For

Month

U.S. Supply (bcfd)

U.S. Lower 48 Dry Production 98.9 98.9 99.3 93.5 88.8

U.S. Imports from Canada 8.4 8.4 9.3 10.2 9.4

U.S. LNG Imports 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4

Total U.S. Supply 107.3 107.3 108.6 103.9 98.6

U.S. Demand (bcfd)

U.S. Exports to Canada 2.8 2.6 2.6 2.5 2.8

U.S. Exports to Mexico 5.3 5.3 5.2 6.0 5.3

U.S. LNG Exports 12.4 12.2 11.8 12.6 7.2

U.S. Commercial 14.8 16.5 19.1 20.4 17.1

U.S. Residential 24.5 27.8 32.5 35.0 29.8

U.S. Power Plant 29.5 32.0 32.9 32.3 28.5

U.S. Industrial 24.6 25.6 26.6 26.6 25.6

U.S. Plant Fuel 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.9

U.S. Pipe Distribution 2.7 2.9 3.2 2.9 2.4

U.S. Vehicle Fuel 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1

Total U.S. Consumption 101.1 110.0 119.4 122.2 108.4

Total U.S. Demand 121.6 130.1 139.0 143.3 123.7

U.S. weekly power generation percent by fuel - EIA

Week ended Week ended Week ended Week ended Week ended

Jan 27 Jan 20 Jan 13 Jan 6 Dec 30

Wind 8 13 11 12 11

Solar 2 2 2 2 2

Hydro 7 7 7 7 6

Other 2 2 2 2 2

Petroleum 0 0 0 0 0

Natural Gas 40 36 38 36 35

Coal 19 18 19 18 23

Nuclear 22 21 21 23 19

SNL U.S. Natural Gas Next-Day Prices ($ per mmBtu)

Hub Current Day Prior Day

Henry Hub 3.43 3.15

Transco Z6 New York 3.26 3.30

PG&E Citygate 15.71 14.93

Eastern Gas (old Dominion South) 2.71 2.66

Chicago Citygate 3.20 3.06

Algonquin Citygate 3.36 3.89

SoCal Citygate 16.81 14.76

Waha Hub 2.74 0.51

AECO 2.80 2.80

SNL U.S. Power Next-Day Prices ($ per megawatt-hour)

Hub Current Day Prior Day

New England 47.25 39.75

PJM West 45.50 38.50

Ercot North 35.50 21.50

Mid C 157.75 135.00

Palo Verde 135.50 100.00

SP-5 142.00 125.00

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Paul Simao)

((scott.disavino@thomsonreuters.com; +1 332 219 1922; Reuters Messaging: scott.disavino.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

((For Refinitiv type ENERGY in Eikon search bar and then go to the GAS drop down and the NORTH AMERICA drop down or see: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageid=usa-gas For Interactive Map, type 'Interactive Map' in the box at upper left of the Reuters nEiko terminal. For graphics on Baker Hughes rig counts, see: For next-day SNL U.S. gas prices, see: For next-day SNL U.S. power prices, see: For U.S. natgas price and storage polls, see: For U.S. nuclear power outages, see: For U.S. Northwest hydro power report, see: For U.S./Canada natural gas rig count vs Henry Hub futures price, see: For the U.S. natural gas speed guide, see: For the U.S. power speed guide, see: To determine CFTC managed money net position add (NYMEX Henry Hub options and futures combined ) plus (ICE Henry Hub options and futures combined divided by four) plus (NYMEX Henry Hub swaps options and futures combined divided by four) plus (NYMEX Henry Hub penultimate gas swaps divided by four) NYMEX Henry Hub options and futures combined NYMEX Henry Hub futures only ICE Henry Hub options and futures combined NYMEX Henry Hub swaps options and futures combined NYMEX Henry Hub Penultimate gas swaps ))