After weeks of surprising to the upside, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) stunned the natural gas market on Thursday with a much lower-than-expected 81 Bcf injection into storage.

storage Oct. 8

Although there were concerns of a low-side storage build, the figure came in 3 Bcf below the lowest estimate ahead of the inventory report. The latest EIA data covered the week ending Oct. 8.

Natural gas futures prices, already more than 20 cents higher day/day, immediately spiked on the news. The November Nymex gas futures contract was trading at around $5.810/MMBtu ahead of the report and then shot up to $5.952 as the print crossed trading desks.

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“Off to the races,” Criterion Research...