Natural gas futures advanced further in early trading Tuesday as mounting evidence of production weakness offered encouragement for bulls.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The May Nymex contract was up 3.7 cents to $1.881/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET. June was trading at $2.077, up 2.6 cents.

Domestic production fell to 97.7 Bcf/d in Wood Mackenzie’s latest estimates early Tuesday, off 1.9 Bcf/d day/day. This included a roughly 350 MMcf/d upward revision to Monday’s sample, according to Wood Mackenzie analyst Laura Munder.

“Day/day declines are concentrated in Texas, the Northeast and North Louisiana, where there are maintenance events underway,” Munder said.

The latest day/day declines included a sharp drop in Texas, associated in part with maintenance events on the Gulf Coast Express and El Paso...