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U.S. natural gas futures extended their decline toward $2/MMBtu Thursday following a weekly decline in stockpiles that was a bit lower than expected.
Utilities pulled 47B cf of natural gas from storage for heating and electricity generation last week, lower than the 54B cf estimated by analysts, the Energy Information Administration reported.
The weaker than expected draw left 1.85T cf of gas in U.S. inventory, 31% above the balance at the same time last year and up 21% compared to the five-year average for storage, the EIA said.
Front-month Nymex natural gas (NG1:COM) for May delivery settled -3.6% to $2.104/MMBtu in a fourth consecutive daily decline; the front-month contract has now dropped 53% YTD.
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The Freeport LNG export plant in Texas is on track to reach full processing power, after natural gas flows into the facility reached 1.8B cf Wednesday and were on pace to reach 2.1B cf today.
The plant has been slowly pulling in more feedgas since the end of its eight-month outage in February, after shutting down following a fire last June.
Analysts at energy consultant Ritterbusch and Associates said recently they “still see significant price support further down the curve with Europe likely to be a strong player later in the summer.”