December Nymex natural gas futures struggled to find direction Thursday as the market was without a key trading catalyst, following the scheduled delay of the latest government storage report. The print, which could mark the first withdrawal of the season, will be a double shot next week, in tandem with this week’s storage results.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) storage report is usually issued every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. ET and is a closely followed dataset for the natural gas market. EIA reported an injection of 79 Bcf for the week ended Oct. 27, which landed near expectations and lifted Nymex natural gas futures higher.

For the week ended Oct. 27, NGI had modeled a 82 Bcf build. Analyst surveys landed at median builds of 81-82 Bcf. The injection had...