US natural gas futures were trading between one cent and two cents higher on Monday, rebounding from losses last week, amid uncertainty over whether the next round of gas inventory data would again fail to meet market expectations. The summer in the United States has barely been hot enough to keep air conditioners turned on regularly, pressuring prices of natural gas. But weekly injections of gas into storage have also been below forecasts, protecting the market's downside.
Front-month gas futures on the CME NYMEX were up 0.8 cent, or 0.2 percent, at $3.783 per million British thermal units by 10:55 am EDT (1455 GMT) on Monday. The session high was $3.82 and the low was $3.73. The contract lost a net 4 percent last week on forecasts for abnormally cooler weather in the near-term, despite some gains from an unexpectedly smaller storage build. MDA Weather Services forecast that the coastal areas of the US Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions could still be cool over the next six to 10 days.
US weather models predicted above-normal temperatures over the next two weeks, with 180 cooling degree days, versus a normal of 174 for this time of year, according to Thomson Reuters Analytics. On the inventory side, analysts said utilities likely added 82 billion cubic feet of gas into storage for the week ended August 15. In the previous week to August 8, the stockpile build was only 78 bcf, versus an expectation of 83 bcf.
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