Record-breaking cold weather that’s threatening to spur heating-fuel shortages from the East Coast to Texas has driven up natural gas demand and put crops across the U.S. wheat belt at risk, Bloomberg reports.
“It is very cold and in a lot of places it is record cold,” says Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.
The U.S. consumed 143 billion cubic feet of gas on New Year’s Day, according to PointLogic Energy. Prices for the heating fuel rose to a one-month high of $3.097 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Additionally, plunging temperatures across the wheat belt on Monday damaged crops that didn’t have a protective layer of snow—sending futures contracts higher, reports international forecasting company World Weather.
