Natural gas futures were trading slightly lower early Thursday as the market prepared to examine the latest government inventory report for further signs of balance impacts from downtime at a major U.S. export terminal. 

The August Nymex contract was off 6.9 cents to $6.429/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

Surveys ahead of the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest weekly storage report, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET, show expectations centered around an injection in the low to mid 70s for the week ended June 24.

The median of 12 estimates submitted to Bloomberg as of early Thursday was a 75 Bcf build, with injection estimates ranging from 69 Bcf to 80 Bcf. A Wall Street Journal poll had a range from 70-80 Bcf, with an average of 75 Bcf. Reuters polled 15 analysts,...