Friday, February 14th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $3.710, up $0.082 compared to Thursday’s closing price of $3.628. Recording the intraday low of $3.696 within minutes of the opening bell, prices continued the overnight rally throughout the session. Encouraged by a bullish overnight shift in weather forecasts and strong LNG demand, the contract rose to tally a three-week intraday high of $3.799 at 12:45PM. March closed higher on Friday at $3.725; up 8% on the week.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday posted a 100 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended February 7 – above the market estimate of a 91 BCF withdrawal. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,297 BCF; 9.7% below this time last year and 2.8% below the five-year average.
As of 8:20AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 33 cents; Natural Gas was down $0.066; Heating Oil was down $0.010; and Gasoline was up $0.002.
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