NEW YORK: US natural gas futures climbed about 4% to a three-week high on Thursday on soaring gas prices in Europe and a decline in US output.

That price increase came despite a drop in the amount of gas flowing to US liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities due to plant maintenance.

It also preceded a federal report expected to show a bigger-than-usual storage build last week when mild weather limited the amount of gas generation to produce power for cooling.

Analysts forecast US utilities added 95 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended June 9. That compared with an increase of 94 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2018-2022) average increase of 84 bcf.

If correct, last week’s increase would boost stockpiles to 2.645 trillion cubic feet (tcf), or 16.0% above the five-year average of 2.281 tcf for the time of year.

In Texas, meanwhile, the state’s power grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), pushed back projections that electricity use would break peak demand records this week to next week as homes and businesses crank up air conditioners to escape the summer’s first heat wave.

Front-month gas futures for July delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 9.7 cents, or 4.1%, to $2.439 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 9:26 a.m. EDT (1326 GMT), putting the contract on track for its highest close since May 19.