North American natural gas prices rallied slightly on colder April weather this week but still stayed close to $2.000/MMBtu. On Thursday, the May New York Mercantile Exchange gas futures contract managed a 2.7-cent gain and closed at $2.249.

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“While a cooler than normal U.S. pattern is expected for late April into the start of May, we believe the nat gas markets would prefer to see hotter patterns over cooler patterns to suggest an impressively hot summer is on track to arrive early,” analysts at NatGasWeather said.

Mexico is in shoulder season mode as it builds to its high-demand summer months. Pipeline imports in Mexico from the United States over the past 10 days averaged 5.11 Bcf/d through Thursday, according to NGI calculations. Intrastate trades, which are not public,...