With comfortable shoulder season temperatures weakening the demand outlook, natural gas futures eased lower in early trading Monday. The October Nymex contract was off 2.1 cents to $2.584/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

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Aided by a surprisingly lean storage injection from the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report and by late-summer heat, the October contract managed to hold above technical support at $2.50 last week, EBW Analytics Group analyst Eli Rubin said. 

However, “there are few visibly bullish short-term market catalysts,” Rubin told clients early Monday.

On the weather-driven demand front, daily cooling degree day totals “could approach merely one-third of last week’s peak heat as demand drifts lower through Friday,” the analyst...