Against a backdrop of sweltering heat at home and surging prices abroad, and with traders still factoring in the balance implications of an extended outage at a major U.S. export facility, natural gas futures advanced early Thursday ahead of the latest round of government storage data.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The July Nymex contract was up 38.3 cents to $7.803/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET. August was up 37.0 cents to $7.776.

Surveys suggest expectations are centered around an injection in the low 90s Bcf for the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 10:30 a.m. ET storage report, which covers changes to Lower 48 stocks during the week ended June 10.

Bloomberg’s survey as of Wednesday produced injection estimates that spanned 83 Bcf to 96 Bcf, with a median of 91 Bcf. A Wall Street Journal...