A drop in cooling demand expectations over the extended weekend, set against a backdrop of a prolonged outage at a major U.S. export facility, saw natural gas futures extend their losses in early trading Tuesday.

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That was after natural gas futures fell for the first time in three sessions on Friday, finishing an exceptionally volatile week on a sour note. The July Nymex gas futures contract shed 52.0 cents and settled at $6.944/MMBtu. August fell 53.2 cents to $6.906.

NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. dropped 85.5 cents to $6.770 ahead of the extended Juneteenth holiday weekend.

After a huge drop last Tuesday – more than $1.40 — on word that a key liquified natural gas (LNG) facility would remain offline through the summer, futures regained ground the next two days amid robust...