October natural gas futures were trading close to even Friday morning at around $2.778/MMBtu, with a seemingly range-bound market continuing to mull the implications of weekly government storage data that fell in line with expectations.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 63 Bcf build into Lower 48 gas stocks for the week ended Aug. 31, compared to a five-year average 65 Bcf build and 60 Bcf recorded in the year-ago period. Total working gas in underground storage as of Aug. 31 stood at 2,568 Bcf, 590 Bcf below the five-year average and 643 Bcf lower than year-ago levels, according to EIA.

“Compared to degree days and normal seasonality, the 63 Bcf injection is about 1.8 Bcf/d loose versus the five-year average,” Genscape Inc. senior natural gas analyst Rick Margolin said Friday. “…While there is still a massive year-on-year deficit, the deficit has actually narrowed to its tightest level since mid-February.”

Margolin said Genscape’s natural gas supply and demand forecast still showed “the current forward curve prices for oil and gas and near-term weather are driving end-of-season inventories toward a level that barely cracks 3.3 Tcf, which would be the lowest start-of-winter inventory since at least 2005.”

Intercontinental Exchange EIA End of Storage Index futures settled Thursday at 3,360 Bcf, down from 3,366 Bcf a week earlier.

EBW Analytics Group CEO Andy Weissman said the last two EIA reports, both missing to the high side of major survey averages, “suggest that production may be growing more rapidly than the pipeline scrape data suggests.”

With the October contract sitting “above a cluster of major support levels near $2.76,” it could take several days to break below this level, Weissman said. “The trading pattern so far this week suggests that there are few buyers at $2.80 or above, keeping trading within a narrow range.”

As for the latest forecast, Radiant Solutions said Friday its latest six- to 10-day outlook (Sept.12-16) “undergoes cooler changes versus yesterday out West as models show more troughing overhead, promoting more widespread belows along the coast and limiting warmth in the Interior.

“Across the eastern half, mainly minor detail changes are noted in an overall warm-dominated forecast as widespread aboves and much aboves are seen,” the firm said. “The fly in the ointment remains what is now Tropical Storm Florence, expected to regain hurricane strength in the coming days. Some models keep Florence out to sea while others impact the East Coast, the latter of which would have implications on the forecast.”

In the 11-15 day outlook (Sept. 17-21), Radiant’s forecast “remains overall warm-leaning but does trend cooler versus yesterday’s outlook, especially across the Upper Midwest and Northeast. This comes with increasing confidence in an area of Canadian high pressure pressing into the region around the middle of the period, bringing a round of normal to marginally below normal temperatures.” The Global Forecast System “is more aggressive than the Euro in this regard, with our forecast taking the middle ground.”

A little after 8 a.m. ET Friday October crude oil futures were trading slightly higher at around $67.81/bbl, while October RBOB gasoline was fractionally higher at around $1.9592/gal.