Zhongjin: Maintaining the judgment that the fundamental factors of American natural gas will be tight in 2026.

CICC released a research report stating that it maintains a tight assessment of the fundamentals of natural gas in the United States in 2026, with an expected range of NYMEX gas prices in the off-peak season moving up to $4-5 per million British thermal units; although Europe has experienced a mild winter, natural gas inventories are low, and the need for replenishment will provide support to the global LNG market. Against the backdrop of a surge in global LNG supply, the trend assessment continues to be a downward shift in the central point of European gas prices, with the expected central point of the Dutch TTF gas price in the off-peak season moving down to $9-10 per million British thermal units in 2026. In addition, attention should be paid to the potential impact of summer hurricanes on oil production and refining in the Gulf of Mexico. CICC stated that in December 2025, as the world welcomed the New Year, the La Nia climate quietly completed its sixth visit - officially establishing the fifth La Nia event in the past six years. Despite meteorological predictions of a weak intensity and short duration for this La Nia event, against the backdrop of rising competition among major powers and resource nationalism, weather changes are injecting more uncertainty into commodity pricing. The intertwining of global commodity markets with climate fluctuations has always been a history of a game between "nature and supply chains". Looking back over the past decade, every occurrence of extreme weather has impacted the commodity market in a chain of "supply disturbance - price anomaly - equilibrium reshaping". For example, the strong El Nio event in 2015-2016 led to a decrease in palm oil production due to drought in Southeast Asia, causing palm oil prices to surge by over 50%; during the La Nia cycle in 2020-2021, a North American cold wave disrupted shale oil production, leading to a temporary high in WTI oil prices, and a frost in Brazil's main coffee producing region pushed NYBOT coffee futures prices up by over 100%; the South American drought at the end of the La Nia cycle in 2022-2023 resulted in a more than 50% decrease in Argentina's soybean production, pushing the global soybean meal price up. CICC believes that climate shocks are often "gray rhinos" embedded in the global supply chain. In 2026, the narrative of climate disruption is undergoing more complex changes. Since the beginning of the year, the La Nia event has become active again, and the probability of an El Nio event in the second half of the year has risen to over 60%. When the "bipolar climate" (alternating/overlapping La Nia and El Nio) encounters a rise in global trade protectionism, the disruptive power of weather risks may also be magnified. In recent years, the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) has expanded carbon tariffs on steel, aluminum, and other resources, the U.S. "Critical Minerals Security Act" has raised domestic production requirements for lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc., Chile has imposed additional taxes on copper ore exports, and Indonesia has implemented export quotas on nickel ore. When the "uncertainty" of natural climate collides with the "rigid constraints" of human policies, the global commodity market in 2026 has entered a new stage of "risk nesting". Weather Outlook: The weak La Nia has been established, and may turn neutral in the second quarter, with a possibility of shifting climate patterns intensifying weather risks this summer NOAA monitoring data shows that sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific have remained below the La Nia threshold, indicating the official establishment of a weak La Nia event for the winter of 2025/26. According to mainstream models, this event is expected to be weak and short-lived, and is expected to transition to a neutral state in the spring of 2026. In the context of global warming, the cooling effect brought about by this La Nia event may not be sufficient to cause widespread cold winters. However, it still has typical effects on global circulation and has already caused some regions to experience unusual rainfall anomalies. Looking ahead in the medium to long term, solar sunspot activity has entered a declining cycle, and historical patterns indicate that this may increase the frequency of transitions between El Nio and La Ni&nti...