Thursday, January 29th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.840, $0.108 above Wednesday’s closing price of $3.732. In a relatively quiet session prices reach an intraday high of $3.878 at 9:05AM and an intraday low of $3.735 at 10:45AM. Traders largely shrugged off the bullish storage withdrawal as markets were seemingly still processing the past week’s volatility. Posting a meager ascent in the afternoon, March closed higher on Thursday at $3.918.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday posted a 242 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended January 23 – greater than the market estimate of a 230 BCF withdrawal. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,823 BCF; 7.9% above this time last year and 5.3% above the five-year average.
As of 6:30AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $0.410; Natural Gas was down $0.030; Heating Oil was down $0.028; and Gasoline was down $0.016.
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