Thursday, February 2nd saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.536 seven cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.468. Trading within a narrow band along $2.530 leading up to the weekly storage publication, prices moved gradually higher following the report’s release, achieving an intraday high of $2.597 by 11:15AM. Mild weather conditions in the coming week combined with the growing storage surplus, the contract lost ground in the afternoon. Marking the intraday low of $2.431 at 1:55PM, March closed lower on Thursday at $2.456.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 151 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended January 27 – in line with the market estimate of 147 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,583 BCF; 9.4% above this time last year and 6.7% above the five-year average.
As of 6:30AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down 17 cents; Natural Gas was up slightly; Heating Oil was down one cent; and Gasoline was down one cent.
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