With the market continuing to assess the potential demand destruction from an explosion at a major U.S. export terminal, natural gas futures continued to tumble in early trading Thursday. 

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The July Nymex contract was down 34.4 cents to $8.355/MMBtu as of around 8:50 a.m. ET.

The July contract had advanced beyond the $9.60 mark Wednesday before midday reports of an explosion at the 2 Bcf/d Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal on the Texas coast. 

News of the explosion prompted a swift retreat amid questions surrounding how much demand could get knocked offline. The prompt month dropped as low as $8.095 in after hours trading.

“Following the early sell-off, Freeport LNG confirmed yesterday evening that the facility would be offline for a minimum of three...