Thursday, July 18th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.077, four cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.035. Continuing its pre-opening ascent to trade near $2.095 ahead of the weekly storage publication, prices then rose to tally the intraday high of $3.014 as the bullish report hit the wire. Trading within a tight band near $2.120 into the afternoon, August closed higher on Thursday at $2.125.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday showed a 10 BCF injection to storage for the week ended July 12 – below the market estimate 20 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,209 BCF; 8.4% above this time last year and 16.9% above the five-year average.
As of 7:25AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down 37 cents; Natural Gas was down five cents; Heating Oil was down one cent; and Gasoline was down one cent.
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