January NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract Closed at $3.766 on Thursday, December 16th

Thursday, December 16th  saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $3.890, nine cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $3.802.  An overnight shift calling for additional heating degree days in the coming weeks provided support enough for prices to trade along $3.880 through midday, as the storage report fell in line with expectations.  Marking an intraday high of $3.910 at 12:20PM, the contract then moved decidedly lower to mark an intraday low of $3.729 at 2:10PM. January closed lower on Thursday at $3.766.
 
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed an 88 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ending December 10th–greater than the market estimate of 65 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,417 BCF; 8.7% below this time last year and 1.8% below the five-year average.
 
As of 6:25AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $1.22; Natural Gas was down ten cents; Heating Oil was down three cents; and Gasoline was down four cents.
 
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