Thursday, May 29th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.543, $0.014 below Wednesday’s closing price of $3.557. Trading along $3.545 leading up to the weekly publication, prices briefly jumped to the intraday high of $3.561 as the report hit the wire. Pulling back to tally an intraday low of $3.439 nearly an hour later, traders are weighing healthy storage levels against anemic short-term weather forecasts. Posting a recovery effort late into the afternoon, July closed lower on Thursday at $3.522.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday posted a 101 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 23 – in line with the market estimate of a 97 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,476 BCF; 11.3% below this time last year and 3.9% above the five-year average.
As of 7:05AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up $0.650; Natural Gas was up $0.006; Heating Oil was up $0.007; and Gasoline was up $0.013.
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