Thursday, March 22nd saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contracts open at $2.651, more than a penny above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.638. Supported overnight by expectations of an above-average storage withdrawal, prices rose to the $2.66 level by 10:00AM. Jumping to the intraday high of $2.667 thirty minutes later as the inventory report was released, the contract quickly stepped lower as traders look to the end of the withdrawal season. Shedding the morning’s gains to mark the intraday low of $2.614 ahead of closing, April finished lower on Thursday at $2.617.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed an 86 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended March 16th – nearly even to the market estimate of 85 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 1,446 BCF; 31.6% below this time last year and 18.5% below the five-year average.
This morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 42 cents; Natural Gas was down two cents; Heating Oil was up one cent; and, Gasoline was up two cents.
Natural Gas Glossary
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