As traders prepared to shift their attention to another round of government inventory data, natural gas futures were testing the $7.00 mark in early trading Thursday. The May Nymex contract was up 5.0 cents to $6.987/MMBtu at around 10:20 a.m. ET.

Ahead of the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET, analyst estimates have been wide ranging. Predictions generally indicate a net injection roughly in line with historical norms for the week ended April 15. 

As of early Thursday 11 responses to a Bloomberg survey showed injections as small as 28 Bcf and as high as 42 Bcf. The median build was 40 Bcf. Reuters polled 14 analysts, whose injection estimates ranged from 17 Bcf to 50 Bcf, with a median increase of 37 Bcf.

A 42 Bcf...