Utilities added 71 Bcf of natural gas to underground storage for the week ending May 14, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday. The result exceeded expectations by a substantial margin and sent futures tumbling.

“This is very damaging for the bull case,” one participant on The Desk’s online energy platform Enelyst said shortly after the EIA data was released.

Ahead of the storage print, the June contract was down 1.8 cents at $2.946/MMBtu, and it dropped further to around $2.927 when the EIA data was released at 10:30 ET. By the top of the hour, the prompt month had shed 4.4 cents to $2.920.

Estimates submitted to Bloomberg prior to the report showed a median injection of 59 Bcf, with predictions ranging from 54 Bcf to 66 Bcf. Results of a...