Without any widespread summer heat on the weather maps yet, natural gas forward prices continued to fluctuate in their recent range during most of the trading period ending May 19. A brief move above the $3.00 mark for the June contract proved fleeting, with the prompt month slipping by a penny on average, according to NGI’s Forward Look.

The rest of the curve also shifted only slightly for the May 13-19 period, including some small gains seen later this year amid strong export demand, lagging storage inventories and relatively stagnant production levels.

U.S. markets generally followed a similar pattern across the forward curve, tracking closely with Nymex futures prices. The June Nymex futures contract settled Wednesday at $2.964 after hitting $3.15 at the start of the week....