US natural gas futures were flat on Wednesday, as mounting heatwave concerns failed to offset bearish supply and storage forecasts.
The front-month Henry Hub contract and the continuous contract were both up 0.07% to $2.686 per million British thermal units.
Weather forecasts remained bullish, with a persistent heat dome expected to push temperatures north of 105 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit across the Southwest and Central Plains in early August, according to a report by Severe-Weather EU.
However, forecasts have moderated for later this month, particularly across the Northern and Northeastern parts of the country, which are no longer expecting above-normal temperatures from August 12 through August 18, according to the National Weather Service.
Meanwhile, output remained at near-record levels, at 110.7 billion cubic feet per day in July, even as demand remained broadly unchanged, according to TradingEconomics.
Markets were also awaiting the weekly natural gas storage report on Thursday, with forecasts pointing to a 30 billion cubic feet net injection, which was significantly above 10 Bcf injected into storage during the year-ago period, according to data compiled by Investing.com.
LNG export feedgas flows were expected at 18.17 Bcf on Wednesday, which was above the 30-day moving average of 17.88 Bcf, according to the Bloomberg LNG Feedgas Model, but still nearly 2.0 Bcf/d below levels observed in April.
This is primarily due to the Freeport LNG facility in Texas entering into scheduled maintenance on July 10, and is expected to last until early August.