December natural gas futures pushed north of $8 for a third consecutive session on Wednesday but failed to capture the gains once again. The contract finished out the session at $7.835, down 11.4 cents from Tuesday.

After reaching a peak of $8.065, the contract sank to a low of $7.770 before inching higher to close. While pure natural gas traders continued to deal with a directionless market, they had to be pleased that they weren’t trading the petroleum complex, where the recent action has been nothing short of crazy. After recording a $98.10/bbl high one week ago, December crude appeared to be scouting lower this week, especially after the $3.45 drop on Tuesday. However, the contract rebounded $2.92 on Wednesday to close at $94.09/bbl.

“We once again pressed the upside but fizzled out, so we ended up probing the downside. I still don’t think there is enough weather to rally to the upper end of the range around $8.500, but that can all change,” said Tom Saal of Commercial Brokerage Corp. in Miami. “That can all change. We are in that flux period of how much weather is going to show up and when. As a result, prices are gyrating because we don’t have those answers. I don’t know whether the downside here is huge. I’m sure we have a little bit of a premium priced in for December, but how much of it is premium remains to be seen.”

Others noted that the bulls’ attempts to move prices higher might be running out of gas. “I think the market is looking a little tired. It has been trying to rally on some colder temperatures coming up, but those temperatures don’t look quite as cold Wednesday as they did on Tuesday,” said Tim Evans, an analyst with Citigroup. “That is part of the issue here. The other factor is the limitation of trying to build a price rally out of what might only be seven to 10 days of colder-than-normal temperatures. If that turns out to be only 2% of the year, we really aren’t going to be able to chew through any great amount of natural gas storage.”

Turning attention to Thursday’s natural gas storage report for the week ended Nov. 9, it appears the industry is primed to see the season’s first withdrawal. A Reuters survey of 21 industry players produced an average expectation of an 11 Bcf withdrawal when the Energy Information Administration releases the 10:30 a.m. EST report. The number revealed Thursday will be compared to last year’s 3 Bcf injection and a five-year average build of 9 Bcf.

“We get the first withdrawal every year around this same time, so while it can be a psychological lift for the market, it really is not any great shake,” said Evans. “If we do get a pull, we will be withdrawing one week early compared to the five-year average, but three weeks later than we saw last year. It really is something that you can pretty much set your calendar by. There appears to be a pretty good consensus on the number this week, with most people looking for a withdrawal of around 10 Bcf. We would probably need a withdrawal of 20-plus Bcf in order to get anybody’s adrenaline pumping.”

Golden, CO-based Bentek Energy’s flow model indicates a withdrawal of 12 Bcf, bringing stocks 2.4% above the five-year high (last year) and 8.3% above the five-year average. The research and analysis firm expects a 16 Bcf withdrawal in the East region, a 1 Bcf withdrawal in the Producing region and a 5 Bcf injection in the West region.

“Storage fill nationwide in the Bentek sample decreased 0.4%, from 97.6% to 97.1%, this week,” Bentek said in its weekly Natural Gas Storage Outlook. “The largest percentage increase was at WBI [Williston Basin Interstate], up 3.8% from 104% to 107.8%.”

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