North America natural gas futures continued to be unpredictable this week as cold weather descended across the Lower 48, while demand for U.S. gas in Europe and Mexico continued to rise.

The February Nymex gas futures contract lost 25.2 cents day/day on Wednesday and closed at $4.031/MMBtu. March fell 20.3 cents to $3.845.

Upcoming bursts of Arctic air were expected to make January the coldest since 2014 in the United States and U.S. production is down from December. Even still, futures prices had not found momentum this week.

“The natural gas market is volatile and it looks like that volatility is here to stay,” said Santa Fe Gas LLC CEO Santiago Garcia. He spoke Thursday at Industry Exchange LLC’s 7th Mexico Infrastructure Projects Forum in Monterrey, Nuevo León....