NEW YORK: US natural gas futures climbed about 1% on Wednesday on a surprise storage withdrawal, forecasts for colder weather and higher heating demand than expected over the next two weeks, and as record amounts of gas kept flowing to US liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said utilities pulled 7 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas from storage during the week ended Nov. 17.

That compares with a withdrawal of 60 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2018-2022) average decline of 53 bcf.

Analysts had projected in a Reuters poll that warmer-than-usual weather last week kept heating demand low enough to allow utilities to add 7 bcf of gas into storage.

EIA released the storage report one day ahead of its usual Thursday schedule due to the US Thanksgiving holiday.

Front-month gas futures for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 2.8 cents, or 1.0%, to $2.874 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 12:16 p.m. EST (1716 GMT).

Before EIA released the storage report, the front-month was unchanged.

On Tuesday, the contract closed at its lowest since Oct. 2 for a second day in a row.

With production at record highs and ample amounts of gas in storage, the futures market is sending signals that some traders have given up hope of seeing winter price spikes from November through March.

The premium of futures for January over December fell to 14 cents per mmBtu, its lowest since October 2022.

Financial firm LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 US states rose to 107.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in November, up from a record 104.2 bcfd in October.

Meteorologists projected the weather would swing from warmer than normal now to colder than normal from Nov. 24-Dec. 1 before turning warmer than normal again from Dec. 3-7.