Amid mixed weather signals and on the heels of bearish-leaning inventory data, natural gas futures pulled back in early trading Friday. The July Nymex contract was off 4.4 cents to $2.564/MMBtu at around 8:35 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday reported a 95 Bcf injection into U.S. natural gas storage for the week ending June 16. The print landed on the high side of consensus expectations and lifted inventories to 2,729 Bcf. That’s 362 Bcf higher than the five-year average, according to EIA.

“We have seen equal and offsetting misses in our model over the last two weeks,” Wood Mackenzie analyst Eric McGuire said of the latest EIA report, which overshot the firm’s pre-report estimate. “Compared to degree days and normal seasonality, this week...