In a head-scratching trading session, natural gas futures strengthened for a third straight day despite government inventory data that reflected the third largest storage injection in more than 20 years. The Nymex November gas futures contract settled Thursday at $6.972/MMBtu, up 4.2 cents day/day. December futures edged up six-tenths of a cent to $7.242.

At A Glance:

  • Production falls to 97 Bcf/d
  • Forecasts for mixed demand
  • NGI models draw of 41 Bcf

Spot gas prices also continued to rally, with the stout gains likely driving at least some of the momentum in the futures market. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. jumped 18.5 cents to $6.190.

At first glance, futures price action appeared to perplex market observers. The big news Thursday was the latest storage report, but price...