Thursday, May 18th saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.405, four cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.365. Slipping to the intraday low of $2.360 ahead of 10:00AM, prices recovered to the $2.390 level ahead of the weekly storage publication. Surging higher as the weekly storage report hit the wire, bringing news of a smaller-than-expected injection, the contract crossed midday at $2.531. Achieving a two-month intraday high of $2.616 ahead of 2:30PM, June closed higher on Thursday at $2.592.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed a 99 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 12 – below the market estimate of 110 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 2,240 BCF; 30.3% above this time last year and 17.9% above the five-year average.
As of 7:30AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was up 74 cents; Natural Gas was down one cent; Heating Oil was up one cent; and Gasoline was up two cents.
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