Thursday, July 3rd saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $3.462, $0.047 above Wednesday’s closing price of $3.488. Building to an intraday high of $3.574 by 10:00AM, prices were hovering near $3.530 ahead of the weekly storage publication. Directed lower as the bearish report hit the wire, the contract withdrew to trade along the $3.435 level through midday. Marking the intraday low of $3.395 at 2:20PM, August closed lower on Friday at $3.409; down 8.8% on the week.
Markets were closed on Friday July 4th in observance of Independence Day.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday posted a 55 BCF injection to storage for the week ended June 27 – above the market estimate of a 46 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,953 BCF; 5.6% below this time last year and 6.2% above the five-year average.
As of 8:00AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $0.060; Natural Gas was down $0.106; Heating Oil was up $0.0320; and Gasoline was down $0.004.
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