Against a backdrop of relentless selling earlier in the week, natural gas futures mounted a modest recovery in early trading Friday as weather models increased heating demand projections overnight. The January Nymex contract was up 11.7 cents to $4.173/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

NGI Morning Natural Gas Price & Markets Coverage

Both the American and European modeling increased gas-weighted degree day expectations overnight, according to Bespoke Weather Services.

Even so, “the pattern type remains the same, being one that still easily favors below normal demand as a whole, and still on pace to give us a December that ranks in the top five warmest on record,” Bespoke said. “Given the look of both the Pacific and Atlantic sides of the pattern heading into the middle of the month, we feel that, despite the overnight...