If we look back over the last three years we can see that the markets have always fallen in October and there appears to be a bit of pattern emerging. The gas market tends to have been traded at quite high prices during the Summer: maintenance schedules and productions downgrades reduces supply causing a view that the pumping of gas into storage is expensive. As such the forward curve then rises on the idea that as we hit Winter, when demand increases and supply is more dependent on outside sources, the possibility of a squeeze in price could prevail. However, as we actually hit Winter there is always a re-evaluation of the view. Traders realise that storage is full (and this year it is full across Europe as well as the UK) and so the market continues to pump gas into a trading hub that has not yet seen the pick up in demand, and so sellers become eager to off load gas at cheaper and cheaper prices. Last year record cold weather in November saw the price start to pick up again as demand reached new highs. So the sell off does not last forever, but whilst there continues to be less than estimated demand and more than estimated supply the market tends to fall as a result. So October is a month to identify some good value purchasing opportunities. History suggests we will see prices slip through the month before the real winter drivers kick in.