Natural gas futures fell in early trading Tuesday, giving up a large chunk of the previous day’s gains as daily export demand levels faded in updated estimates.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Coming off a 7.4-cent rally on Monday, the May Nymex contract was down 5.0 cents to $1.787/MMBtu as of 8:43 a.m. ET.

A combination of colder forecast trends and leaner production numbers may have led to short covering in Monday’s session, according to NatGasWeather.

“There remains plenty to the bearish side, including massive surpluses near 670 Bcf, underperforming LNG exports and a very comfortable U.S. weather pattern for the eight- to 15-day forecast period,” NatGasWeather said.

Production volumes showed a steep first-of-the-month decline in Monday’s estimates. Monday’s production figure was...