After stabilizing within a tight, 10-cent trading range for thepast week, natural gas futures finally broke to the upsideWednesday amid a post AGA buying surge. May received the largestboost of any month, rallying 7.2 cents to post its first $3.00-plus settlement at $3.021. According to the American GasAssociation 2 Bcf was injected into underground storage facilitieslast week, bringing the total to 1,033, or 31% full. “Its alwaysdifficult to predict the way the market will react to the firstinjection of the season,” a Chicago trader said. “Expectationscalled for net change of plus or minus 10 Bcf and that’s what wegot. If you ask me, I am a little surprised by the market’sreaction,” he said.

While expectations undoubtedly play a large role in how themarket views the injection/withdrawal released each Wednesday, sodoes the comparison with historical data. By that token, the AGAinjection figure released yesterday was bullish, as it paled incomparison with not only the 30 Bcf figure seen a year ago, butalso with the 10 Bcf, six-year average. After tumbling more than200 Bcf from its February peak, the year-on-year deficit is againon the rise, gaining 35 Bcf during the last two weeks.

In addition to supportive supply data, bulls received a greenlight from technicals yesterday. Several traders were quick topoint to the market’s inability to fill in the chart gap leftbetween last Wednesday $2.90 high and Thursday’s $2.92 low as asupportive factor. If prices are able to reverse to the downsidetoday, support is seen at that level as well as at prior lows at$2.95. Resistance is still seen at prior highs from the weeklycontinuation chart of $3.13 and $3.20.

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