“Volatile,” a word that is often used to describe the price of natural gas with its random-appearing jumps and plunges, head fakes, and whiplash-inducing turnarounds, no longer describes the price of natural gas. “Chaotic” would be a better term.

On Friday, when stocks were plunging, natural gas soared nearly 10%. The highest close since June 2010. Up 20% for the week. Up 170% from April 2012. And it’s just the beginning. Because after the glut comes the panic.

Record demand has pushed natural gas in storage to the lowest level for that week since 2005. And in 2005, the price of natural gas spiked to its all-time high. Something has to give.

Someone must have known something. Natural gas jumped 2% before the Department of Energy released its Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report at 10:30 a.m. Normally, the report sends gas futures gyrating up or down. Today, they gyrated up from the start of trading.

Some Mile Stones: Working gas in underground storage, the primary measure of whether gas is in over- or undersupply, has now dropped 2.1% below the five-year average for this week, and a dizzying 31.6% below the same week last year. But the price of natural gas – it doubled over the last 12 months – is still below the cost of production.

The “shale gas revolution” opened up huge resources in the US, and natural gas production jumped as a consequence, but it pushed prices far below the cost of production, for far too long. A disaster for an entire industry. An amazing opportunity for its customers. Since April, the price has jumped 80%, and it’s still far below the cost of production.