The NYMEX July natural gas futures contract continued to drop Thursday, trading at $2.305/MMBtu, down 11.6 cents from Wednesday's settlement, as of 12:21 pm EDT (1621 GMT) following an unsupportive storage report.
Tom Saal, a senior vice president of energy trading with Hencorp Becstone Futures, said the storage report, which showed a larger build than analysts had expected, was weighing on prices.
Saal added that without any supportive weather in updated forecasts, the contract had no reason to rally.
Citi Futures Perspective analyst Tim Evans said the higher-than-expected storage report was "further evidence that natural gas lost some utility-sector demand for natural gas to the coal market with the higher prices of two weeks ago."
Saal put support at $2.25/MMBtu and resistance at $2.38/MMBtu.
The contract has been trading Thursday between $2.304/MMBtu and $2.439/MMBtu.
