The expiring August natural gas futures contract was set to open Friday about 2.1 cents higher at around $2.801/MMBtu, with a tight storage picture and long-range hotter trends helping to spur on a test of resistance. September was trading about 2.4 cents higher at around $2.786.

The latest weather outlook was largely unchanged overnight, continuing to advertise heat arriving around Aug. 5, with cooler trends in the near-term, according to Bespoke Weather Services.

The front month is “again testing $2.80 resistance this morning,” Bespoke told clients Friday. “As that contract expires today we’ll watch for the September contract to test $2.80 resistance as well, as we had generally expected it to trade in that $2.75-2.80 range today.”

With a lighter-than-expected Energy Information Administration (EIA) storage build Thursday, “production off highs and long-range weather supportive we had expected that if anything risk would be skewed a bit higher today…$2.80 resistance may prove to be firm due to short-term cool weather and lingering production concerns, and expectations that forecasts cool again late next week or the following week has us from turning more bullish here still.”

Radiant Solutions said its latest six- to 10-day forecast Friday featured “a small change in the cooler direction…focused early on as models come into better alignment with high pressure making an appearance in the Midwest. Otherwise, this remains a hotter than normal period for a large part of the West and the Northeast, while temperatures average in the normal category from the Midwest to the South.

“Risks remain cooler in the South where models continue to feature greater below normal coverage.”

In the 11-15 day outlook, Radiant reported “a small warm change” early for the Great Lakes, with the forecast “mostly consistent with previous expectations elsewhere.”

Another bullish miss from EIA’s weekly natural gas storage report failed to spark much of a rally Thursday as the market continues to count on production replenishing stockpiles once summer heat subsides. EIA reported a 24 Bcf injection into Lower 48 gas stocks for the week ended July 20, lower than most estimates and well below the five-year average 46 Bcf. Last year, EIA recorded a 19 Bcf injection.

“Compared to degree days and normal seasonality, the 24 Bcf injection is about 1.5 Bcf/d tight versus the five-year average,” Genscape Inc. analysts Margaret Jones and Eric Fell said. “Relative to the previous week, total power generation was up about 20 average GWh. Collectively, nuclear and renewable gen were close flat week/week (w/w). Coal was up an estimated 7 average GWh w/w, and gas generation was up about 13 average GWh for an estimated 2.6 Bcf/d more gas burn w/w.”

While inventories sit at a 705 Bcf deficit to last year, “the year-on-year deficit did tighten marginally and is now the smallest it has been since late March,” Jones and Fell noted.

September crude oil was set to open about 8 cents lower at around $69.53/bbl, while August RBOB gasoline was trading about 1.6 cents higher at around $2.1778/gal.