Natural Gas Futures Flirt With $3 Early as February Forecast Fails to Stave Off Bears

Natural gas futures flirted with the $3 mark in early trading Wednesday as updated forecasts moderated the temperature outlook heading into the second week of February. 

The February Nymex contract, expiring later this week, was off 17.0 cents to $3.088/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET. March was down 8.7 cents to $2.970.

Overnight selling occurred as both the American and European weather models trended warmer for the Feb. 5-8 time frame, according to NatGasWeather. The American model lost eight heating degree days (HDD) overall, while the European dataset trended colder for next week but warmer Feb. 5-8 to lose three HDD, the firm said.

For next week through Feb. 6, the pattern remained “quite cold” in the latest model runs, with strong HDD totals and natural gas demand...