The chorus of voices calling for a rebound in the natural-gas market got a little louder this week, as another research firm detailed why it thinks gas is on the way up and investors need to make their move.

Calgary's Tristone Capital Inc. published a lengthy report telling investors to pour cash into gas companies, while maintaining its US$6.75/mcf price forecast on the New York Mercantile Exchange, where commodities are traded.

There is an oversupply of natural gas in North America right now, but Tristone notes the rate of production growth is beginning to decline.

"We expect U. S. supply will peak in the next two months and hit an inflection point of sequential monthly declines beginning in the month of August," said the report, released on Thursday.

"The drop in supply will begin to accelerate as we enter the heating season, with our expectation that we are down nearly 4 [billion cubic feet per day] year-over-year by the start of winter and the supply shortfall grows to 5.5 bcf/day lower year-over-year by late [in the second quarter of 2010].

The report echoes analysis the folks at CIBC World Markets published in April.

"We do see the potential for an improvement in natural gas prices by the end of 2009 given drilling activity in Canada and across the U. S. declining sharply since last fall. We expect this reduction in activity to induce a material supply response by the end of [the second half of 2009] (of up to 5 bcf/d), which should support improving prices within the winter of 2009/2010," the April 29 report said.

John Zahary, chief executive of Harvest Energy Trust, agreed that return of healthier gas prices is "inevitable," and will likely occur in 2010.

"The timing is likely going to be related to some sort of weather event," he said, noting about 28% of Harvest's energy production stems from natural gas. "Whether it is just cold temperatures that increase demand or whether it is the hurricane impacts that affect supply, the big run-ups in natural gas are usually weather related."

Lex Kerkovius, a fund manager and senior analyst at Mc-Lean & Partners Wealth Management Ltd., said while natural-gas stocks have already rallied, there may be more room to climb.

"Investors need to be looking at gas stocks now," he said. "You cannot wait for the commodity [price] to catch up."

ctait@nationalpost.com