Looming front-month expiration helped spark a massive surge in natural gas futures prices in early trading Monday. The expiring October Nymex contract was up 32.4 cents to $5.464/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET; November was up 32.8 cents to $5.528.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Higher prices at European benchmarks and the impending expiration of the October contract appeared to be the two likely catalysts for the early surge in prices Monday, Bespoke Weather Services told clients in a note.

Contract expiration “is likely the main item to note, as options expire today, and the October contract rolls off the board tomorrow,” Bespoke said. “Regardless of any actual data, we have tended to see abundant buying into contract expirations. As such, it is difficult to tell how high we could run here, but we do...