With natural gas spot prices falling to a low of $2.83 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) in late November – a two-year low – some consumers of the fuel have sought out deals to secure fixed-price supply benchmarked against current lows for as long as possible. At the same time, the US Energy Information Administration expects 2011 production to rise by 6.1% in 2011 to 65.6 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) and storage is now 261bcf above the five-year average, prompting producers on the