Friday, August 23rd saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.020, three cents below Thursday’s closing price of $2.053. In an uneventful day of trading, prices tallied the intraday low of $2.009 at 9:25AM and the intraday high of $2.043 by 10:15AM. Failing to recover from the previous session’s selloff, unsupportive forecasts helped traders to overlook maintenance-induced production declines as the contract traded along $2.020 throughout the afternoon. September closed lower on Friday at $2.022.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published last Thursday showed a 35 BCF injection to storage for the week ended August 16 – above the market estimate of a 25 BCF injection. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,299 BCF; 7.2% above this time last year and 12.6% above the five-year average.
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