NEW YORK: US natural gas futures held near a one-week high on Monday on a big daily drop in US output and much higher global gas prices. Capping those gains were forecasts for milder weather and lower demand over the next two weeks than previously expected.

Front-month gas futures for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 0.9 cents, or 0.4%, to $2.614 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 9:12 a.m. EDT (1312 GMT), putting the contract on track for its highest close since Sept. 1 for a second day in a row.

Even though US gas prices fell about 6% last week, speculators switched their net short futures and options position on the New York Mercantile and Intercontinental Exchanges to net long, according to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitments of Traders report.

In Europe, gas futures jumped 7% to a two-week high around $12 per mmBtu at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) benchmark due to ongoing strikes at Chevron’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Australia and gas supply maintenance outages in Norway.

Australia, Qatar and the US are the world’s three biggest LNG producers. Chevron’s Australia facilities account for over 5% of global supply.

In Texas, power demand in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) dropped as the weather turned milder after breaking the monthly record for September every weekday last week as homes and businesses cranked up air conditioners to escape a brutal heat wave.