Today had all the hallmarks of a potentially active natural gas trading day. A bullish EIA miss last week had traders actively watching this week's print, and August contract options expiry at the settle could add to the fireworks. Instead, the August contract traded within a narrow 3-cent range, settling just half a cent up at the settle. 

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The strip was pulled back by weaker long-term post-March 2019, with the fall strip a bit more bid. 

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This came as the EIA announced that last week we only injected 24 bcf of natural gas into storage, which was solidly below our 33 bcf estimate. 

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This print was even tighter than what we saw last week, easily confirming that last week's small build was not a one-week aberration. 

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Before it, we saw the August contract move up just a tick lower than the level we had seen it as likely testing all week. Our Weekly Natural Gas Update published on Monday highlighted that August prices were likely to test $2.8 this week but unlikely to move above. 

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This is exactly what appeared to happen, with a number of sellers coming in right at that $2.8 level. Yet even yesterday in our intraday Note of the Day we were quite confident that the level would be tested. 

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Similarly, those warm trends mentioned Monday in our Natural Gas Weekly Update are still being picked up on by the Climate Prediction Center, with another tick higher in long-range warm risks today. 

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In our Afternoon Update today we explained what seemed to be the driving forces behind price action in the natural gas market, as well as how weather forecasts are likely to change into the weekend and how that should impact prices. We similarly looked at the latest spread movement, as though flat price movements were quite small today there were changing dynamics along the natural gas strip that were quite interesting.