Significant moderation in the extent of forecast cold over the next two weeks kept the pressure on natural gas futures in early trading Thursday. Coming off a 25.2-cent swoon a day earlier, the February Nymex contract was down another 11.0 cents to $3.921/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

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As of early Thursday, weather models were showing major warmer trends day/day, Bespoke Weather Services said. The firm lowered its gas-weighted degree day projections through Feb. 3 by 12.5 as a result.

“While still a colder than normal picture, we simply are not getting the extreme cold days that were advertised by numerous model runs over the last couple of weeks,” Bespoke said. “More importantly, signs of warming into February continue to grow, as models gravitate toward more of a western...