Natural gas futures traded both sides of even in the early morning hours Thursday as the market looked ahead to the latest government inventory data, expected to reveal a larger-than-average withdrawal. 

Coming off an 18.8-cent slide in the previous session, the March Nymex contract was up 2.8 cents to $2.424/MMBtu at around 8:40 a.m. ET.

For a market laden with bearish sentiment, the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 10:30 a.m. ET storage report appeared poised to deliver at least a modestly supportive result for the week ended Feb. 3. Surveys showed expectations centered around a withdrawal approaching 200 Bcf, bullish versus historical norms.

A Reuters poll of 13 analysts produced a median decrease of 194 Bcf, while a Bloomberg survey of six analysts resulted in...