As natural gas traders looked ahead to a potentially pivotal government storage report for an updated gauge on the supply/demand balance, futures retreated a couple cents in early trading Thursday. The April Nymex contract was down 2.5 cents to $2.503/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Major surveys ahead of this week’s storage report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed expectations clustering around a withdrawal in the vicinity of 16-22 Bcf.

A Bloomberg survey found withdrawal estimates ranging from 14 Bcf to 20 Bcf and a median of 18 Bcf. The median forecast in a Reuters poll, meanwhile, landed at a pull of 16 Bcf, with draw estimates spanning 1 Bcf to 29 Bcf. The Wall Street Journal’s weekly survey produced withdrawal estimates that ranged from 14 Bcf...