The October Nymex natural gas futures contract spiked 83.0 cents day/day on Wednesday to surge above $9.00/MMBtu. It then plummeted back to earth on Thursday as rumors of a potential railway workers strike faded in the United States.

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The news “that a strike has likely been averted triggered the start of selling early this morning, which continued into the cash trading session,” NatGasWeather said Thursday afternoon.

Still, natural gas futures prices are firmly higher than where they were last week, propelled by five straight trading sessions of gains starting last Thursday. These were driven by weak projections for U.S. storage, strong demand for LNG in Europe, and the possibility of weather disruptions.

Meanwhile, Mexico on Thursday imported 5.08 Bcf of natural gas via...