With early June heat disappointing bulls in the latest forecasts, appearing to limit upside for prices in the near-term, natural gas futures pulled back sharply in early trading Friday. The July Nymex contract was down 42.9 cents to $8.466/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

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Overnight weather model trends were cooler, leading Bespoke Weather Services to remove four gas-weighted degree days from its latest 15-day forecast.

“We do see total 15-day demand just a bit higher than normal, so it’s not like the pattern is inherently bearish,” Bespoke said. However, “the first third of June definitely is not showing the heat we had expected it to show.”

Meanwhile, Bespoke said its dataset was showing a new year-to-date high for production Friday, with volumes closing in on 97...