As traders looked ahead to potentially the first reported withdrawal of the heating season from the latest round of government inventory data, natural gas futures advanced modestly early Thursday. The December Nymex contract was up 1.8 cents to $3.064/MMBtu at around 8:35 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is on track to report the season’s first withdrawal at 10:30 a.m. ET, when it unveils its latest weekly storage report. NGI forecasted a 28 Bcf pull for this week’s report, which covers the week ending Oct. 30.

A net decline in inventories this week would see the market shift into withdrawal mode ahead of schedule, at least based on historical norms. For the comparable week a year earlier, EIA recorded a 49 Bcf injection into storage. The five-year...