Thursday, August 1st saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract open at $2.089, five cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $2.036. Trading within two cents of $2.095 through 10:30AM, prices jumped to the intraday high of $2.126 as the weekly storage report hit the wire. Writing off the bullish injection, the contract withered throughout the balance of the session as traders focused on the historically stout storage levels. Retreating to an intraday low of $1.965 ahead of 2:30PM, September finished lower on Thursday to close at $1.968.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed an 18 BCF injection to storage for the week ended July 26 – below the market estimate 31 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 3,249 BCF; 8.4% above this time last year and 15.7% above the five-year average.
As of 8:30AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down $1.03; Natural Gas was up four cents; Heating Oil was down four cents; and Gasoline was down three cents.
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