With the hottest week of the summer just around the corner, natural gas futures rebounded early Monday. The September Nymex gas futures contract was flirting with the $4.000/MMBtu mark again, trading 6.3 cents higher at $3.977 at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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Long-range outlooks showed stronger ridging in the eastern United States next week, giving a boost to temperatures in the Midwest and East, according to Bespoke Weather Services. This comes on the heels of cool weather this week in these regions. As a whole, four gas-weighted degree days (GWDD) were added compared with Friday’s data, and the 15-day period was more than 10 GWDDs above the five-year average.

“Next week’s peak highs will reach the low to mid-90s for most areas from Chicago to New York City and points south,”...