After a bull run last week, North American natural gas futures floundered this week. The November New York Mercantile Exchange gas futures contract on Thursday sank for the seventh straight session to settle at $2.957/MMBtu, down 9.9 cents day/day.

Mild weather and ample U.S. natural gas supplies helped spur the downward pressure.

Mexico imports from the United States, meanwhile aren’t helping and are down slightly, typical for this time of year. For the 10-day period through Thursday, average pipeline imports into Mexico were 6.80 Bcf/d. This is 0.62 Bcf/d less than the last 10-day period, according to NGI estimates. 

“The October averages across each region and the total average are all now below September, August, and July averages, only beating out June’s total...