After a brief reprieve, natural gas futures continued to slide Friday as traders continued to weigh the implications of a potentially prolonged outage at the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal. With tight balances firmly intact, the July Nymex gas futures contract slipped 11.3 cents to $8.850/MMBtu. August futures fell 11.1 cents to $8.867.

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At A Glance:

  • Storage could rise amid Freeport outage
  • Forecast heat still leaves stocks at risk
  • Cash rallies as hot temperatures spread

Spot gas prices were overwhelmingly higher ahead of the weekend, with thunderstorms rolling through the northern United States but oppressive heat baking the South. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. jumped 33.5 cents to $8.215.

Two days after an explosion at Freeport LNG, the market was still...