Pressured by another large storage injection made even larger by a 14 Bcf revision, natural gas futures sunk lower Wednesday as traders once again set their sights on the sub-$3.00 level. However, similar to other moves down toward that level of support, yesterday’s selling was unable to demote prices beneath the $3.00 mark. The August contract settled at $3.087, down 7.8 cents for the day and just pennies above its $3.055 low.

According to the American Gas Association, 110 Bcf was injected into underground storage facilities last week, bringing working gas levels to 62% full at 2,042 Bcf. Included in the injection figure was a one-time, 14 Bcf upward revision to underground storage levels that was attributed to a correction issued by one of the reporting companies in the Consuming Region West.

“We have a company that reported a correction to the prior data that they had been reporting to us,” said Chris McGill of AGA. “It was not a one-week over one-week situation. The company had, in the computer program that aggregates their data, found a glitch that had been under-reporting to us for a period of time–several months actually. So the net 14 Bcf adjustment…did not happen as a result of something last week, it happened over a period of time. There was a cumulative effect. Unfortunately there was no way to go back and change it [retroactively] because [the company] couldn’t provide us data on a week-to-week basis.”

Most traders admitted that the storage report and revision were bearish, as the 110 Bcf injection exceeded both last year’s 70 Bcf refill and the five-year average build of 85 Bcf. However, a Houston-based cash trader made the bullish case, insisting that last week’s injection without the revision (96 Bcf) fell short of most market expectations. Nevertheless, the selling pressure was felt immediately as August prices dove from $3.18 at 2 p.m. EDT to $3.055 at 2:30 p.m.

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