Wednesday, February 25th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas contract open at $2.966, $0.055 above Tuesday’s closing price $2.915. March settled higher at $2.969.
The April contract opened at $2.887, $0.056 above Tuesday’s closing price $2.831. With little change to market fundamentals, continued strong LNG demand and forecast mild March temperatures, prices rose cautiously through the morning. Marking the intraday high of $2.930 at 11:45AM and again at 12:25PM, the contract then withdrew to mark the intraday low of $2.861 ahead of 2:30PM. April closed higher on Wednesday at $2.868.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report is due out Thursday at 10:30AM. The report is expected to show a 41 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended February 20. This compares to a 261 BCF withdrawal this time last year and a five-year average withdrawal amount of 168 BCF.
As of 9:05 AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $1.06; Natural Gas was down $0.071 Heating Oil was down $0.043; and Gasoline was down $0.004.
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