Natural gas futures continued to come under selling pressure early Thursday as expectations for another surplus-trimming government inventory report failed to arrest recent bearish momentum. 

Coming off a 6.3-cent sell-off in the previous session, the September Nymex contract was down another 5.0 cents to $2.447/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

Surveys ahead of the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 10:30 a.m. ET storage report point to an injection in the low 30s Bcf for the week ending Aug. 18, a result that would further shrink the current Lower 48 inventory surplus versus the five-year average.

A Wall Street Journal survey produced injection estimates from 29-39 Bcf, with an average build of 33 Bcf. Reuters polled 13 analysts, whose estimates ranged from...