Wednesday, December 18th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $3.400, up $0.092 compared to Tuesday’s closing price of $3.308. Sustaining overnight gains throughout the morning, analysts credited continued short-covering and expected below-average temperatures in early January. Achieving the intraday high of $3.441 at 12:15PM, prices then withdrew to reach the intraday low of $3.329 at 1:30PM. January closed higher on Wednesday at $3.374.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report is due out Thursday at 10:30AM. The report is expected to show a 130 BCF withdrawal from storage for the week ended December 13. This compares to an 87 BCF withdrawal this time last year and a five-year average withdrawal amount of 92 BCF.
As of 7:15AM this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $0.160; Natural Gas was up $0.102; Heating Oil was down $0.007, and Gasoline was up $0.001.
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