Thursday, May 26th – settlement day for the June contract – saw the front-month NYMEX Natural Gas Futures Contract settle at $8.908, six cents below Wednesday’s closing price of $8.971.
The more actively traded July contract opened at $9.174, eighteen cents above Wednesday’s closing price of $8.993. Losing ground early on, prices dipped to $8.931 by 9:45AM and recovered to the $9.15 level ahead of the weekly storage publication. Mounting a staggered ascent following the report’s release, prices rose to the intraday high of $9.447 at 12:10PM. Profit-taking took hold throughout the afternoon as the contract fell to an intraday low of $8.877 ahead of 2:30PM. July closed lower on Thursday at $8.895.
The NYMEX will be closed on Monday, May 30th in observance of Memorial Day.
The EIA Natural Gas Storage Report published on Thursday showed an 80 BCF injection to storage for the week ended May 20th – in line with the market estimate of 76 BCF. Total working gas in storage was reported as 1,812 BCF; 17.6% below this time last year and 15.3% below the five-year average.
As of 7:10AM EST this morning in Globex, WTI Crude was down 46 cents; Natural Gas was down 27 cents; Heating Oil was down two cents; and Gasoline was up slightly.
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