Amid reports of power outages and production freeze-offs resulting from an intense cold blast stretching down into the Gulf Coast over the holiday weekend, natural gas futures were sharply higher in early trading Tuesday. The March Nymex contract was trading at $3.095/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET, up 18.3 cents from Friday’s settlement.

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A result of “bitterly cold air” making its way into the Midcontinent and Deep South, “massive amounts of production” were offline as of early Tuesday, as were numerous gas-fired power plants, EBW Analytics Group analysts said in a note to clients. Liquefied natural gas operations and industrial consumption had also “taken major hits” as a result of the conditions, according to the firm.

The “extreme cold” has “brought chaos to...