Thursday, February 8th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $1.942, two cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $1.967. Trading along the $1.940 level heading into the weekly storage publication, prices momentarily rose to an intraday high of $1.958 only to drop to the intraday low of $1.911 mere minutes later. Facing bearish pressure from unsupportive weather forecasts and a historically weak storage pull, the contract traded sideways near $1.920 for the balance of the session. March closed lower on Thursday at $1.917.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 75 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended February 2 – on par with the market estimate 71 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,584 BCF; 7.8% above this time last year and 10.6% above the five-year average.
As of 7:05AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down one cent; Natural Gas was eight cents; Heating Oil was down slightly; and Gasoline was down slightly.
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