A cooling weather outlook did not deter North America natural gas futures from surging mid-week, touching $8.88/MMBtu on Thursday afternoon.

mini

September natural gas prices “are sharply higher for the third day in a row and despite steady cooler trends,” NatGasWeather said on Thursday. “Why prices have been so strong this week is curious to the viewpoint of more comfortable weather patterns arriving for the coming 15 days.  However, bulls are using other factors to justify gains, such as strong power burns on light wind energy generation and slightly weaker production versus last week.”

The New York Mercantile Exchange September contract gained 75 cents over the course of the two previous days, closing at $8.202/MMBtu on Wednesday. This was after news of Freeport LNG’s...