Natural gas futures were trading just shy of even early Thursday as mild April forecasts and a healthy storage cushion exiting the winter heating season kept the pressure on prices. The May Nymex contract was off 1.6 cents to $2.139/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET.

The $2.197 high for May natural gas in Wednesday’s session saw the front month recover to within a couple pennies of last Friday’s settle despite a “collapse” in weather-driven demand expectations in recent forecasts, EBW Analytics Group analyst Eli Rubin told clients early Thursday.

“Rising daily space heating demand into the holiday weekend and gas production being restricted by pipeline maintenance (Permian and Appalachian production nominations are each down 1.0 Bcf/d week/week) have provided physical...