As traders looked ahead to the release of the latest round of government storage data, natural gas futures were down early Thursday, paring the previous session’s gains. After climbing 3.0 cents in Wednesday’s settlement, the April Nymex contract was off 2.1 cents to $2.671/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Predictions for this week’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) storage report, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET, have been wide-ranging. The report, covering the week ending March 5, follows last week’s reported 98 Bcf weekly withdrawal, a print that surprised far to the bearish side of consensus.

For this week’s print, NGI’s model predicted a 104 Bcf pull for this week’s report. A Bloomberg survey showed respondents predicting a median 78 Bcf withdrawal, with...