The August natural gas contract rallied solidly on the day today, settling up around a percent and a half ahead of tomorrow's much-anticipated weekly EIA storage report. 

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 It was a strong day along the entire strip, with significant prompt month isolation but the rest of the strip firm behind it. 

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This fit perfectly with our Afternoon Update from yesterday, where we called for the August contract to move into resistance from $2.77-$2.8.  

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We had been leaning bullish since the decline early on Monday due to a small pullback in production we have been watching closely and updating clients on daily. This has been partially offset by a tick lower in LNG exports which we outlined in our Note of the Day today as well.  

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Meanwhile, long-range forecasts have generally been ticking back warmer, with the Climate Prediction center gradually showing increasing warm risks. 

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This is exactly what we had warned clients about back in our Monday Weekly Natural Gas Report, as though July is likely to end cool we saw heat risks returning late in the first week of August into the second week. 

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