Natural gas futures gave up more ground Thursday — a fourth consecutive daily decline — as traders focused more on weather-induced demand weakness than the first storage withdrawal of the season, a bullish print that pointed to balances tightening ahead of winter.

EIA storage Oct 30

The December Nymex contract fell 10.4 cents day/day and settled at $2.942/MMBtu. The front month had lost more than 9% over the three previous days. January shed 9.3 cents to $3.084.

Spot gas prices declined, as well, amid mild fall temperatures across most of the Lower 48 that did little to spur either heating or cooling demand. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. dropped 17.5 cents to $2.170.

As market observers anticipated, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday reported a pull from natural gas...