All it took was one little storage datapoint for natural gas futures – down another 50-plus cents early Thursday – to stage a momentous recovery and finish the day well in the green. The July Nymex gas futures contract settled at $8.963/MMBtu, up 26.4 cents from Wednesday’s close. August futures edged up 29.9 cents to $8.978.

At A Glance:

  • Production falls to 97 Bcf/d
  • Forecasts for mixed demand
  • NGI models draw of 41 Bcf

Spot gas prices followed the early lead of futures, plunging more than $1.00 across most of the country. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. plummeted $1.180 to $7.860.

Notwithstanding an intensifying heat wave spreading across the West and into the South Central part of the United States, the explosion at the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on...