On Thursday, U.S. natural gas futures fell for the first time in seven sessions. The April New York Mercantile Exchange gas futures contract slipped 4.6 cents day/day and settled at $2.765/MMBtu. May fell 4.4 cents to $2.899.

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The previous rally has proved minor and the overall plunge in U.S. prices remains dramatic. Last August, Henry Hub was hovering around the $10 mark.

Natural gas prices are so low that producers including gas heavyweights Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Comstock Resources Inc. are reducing upstream activity.  Rystad Energy analyst Ade Allen said he expected lower output to be “heavily skewed toward private operators in the Haynesville Shale and a few public operators in Appalachia.”

EBW Analytics Group’s Eli Rubin, senior analyst, said production from...