The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday reported an injection of 74 Bcf natural gas into storage for the week ended Oct. 20. The result came in shy of expectations and bolstered Nymex natural gas futures.

The Nymex November futures contract was up 1.6 cents at $3.026/MMBtu in early trading and held mostly unchanged at 10:30 a.m. ET. By 11 a.m., it was up 4.1 cents.

“That EIA number, at a minimum, can’t hurt the rally,” StoneX Financial Inc.’s Thomas Saal, senior vice president of energy, told NGI.

He said that, with blasts of freezing air in the cards from the Rockies to the Great Lakes this week, continued strong production may be all that lies between the market and the onset of storage withdrawals in early November. Output reached record levels...