Thursday, November 30th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.822, two cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.804. Achieving the intraday high of $2.845 by 9:35AM, the contract was trading at $2.815 ahead of the weekly storage publication. Adding to the week’s preexisting bearish sentiment, the EIA reported an injection of 10 BCF; a stark contrast to the five-year average of a 44 BCF withdrawal. Falling to the intraday low of $2.761 as the report hit the wire, prices recovered into the afternoon to trade sideways near $2.795. January finished nearly flat on Thursday to close at $2.802.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 10 BCF injection to storage for the week ended November 24 – above the market estimate of a 3 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,836 BCF; 9.8% above this time last year and 8.6% above the five-year average.
As of 7:00AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 25 cents; Natural Gas was down two cents; Heating Oil down one cent; and Gasoline was up slightly.
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