Natural gas futures sat near even early Thursday as traders braced for potential market-moving impacts from the latest government inventory data and from the looming prompt-month expiration. Heading into its final day of trading, the February Nymex contract was up 2.3 cents to $4.300/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET. March was up 1.0 cent to $4.046.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

For the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) storage report, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET, estimates pointed to a larger-than-average withdrawal, with major surveys suggesting a consensus pull of around 215 Bcf.

As of Wednesday a Bloomberg survey of eight analysts produced a range of withdrawal projections from 198 Bcf to 225 Bcf, with a median pull of 215 Bcf. The Wall Street Journal poll results averaged 215 Bcf as well,...