It was a struggle, but natural gas bulls emerged victorious in sending natural gas futures higher on Friday to close out a volatile week. Given the tighter supply/demand balance, the more convincing cold outlook for the coming week lifted the January Nymex futures contract 3.8 cents to $2.591. February settled at $2.603, up 3.3 cents day/day.

Markets

Cash prices also strengthened, with NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. climbing 13.5 cents to $2.565.

After recent weather model runs indicated the coming week could be colder than previously forecast, bulls attempted to ride the momentum from the latest government storage report. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a larger-than-expected 91 Bcf withdrawal from storage inventories during the week ending Dec. 4. The draw was...