US natural gas futures were up on Friday as markets balanced persistent Summer heat with robust supplies and a bearish storage build.
The front-month Henry Hub contract and the continuous contract both rose 1.50% to $2.774 per million British thermal units.
Weather forecasts continued to point towards above-normal temperatures across most of the country, except for parts of the Northeast and Northwest, from August 28 through September 3, according to a report by the National Weather Service.
However, over the course of this week, cooler temperatures across the Northeast and parts of the West largely offset above-average temperatures across the South, leading to a 0.8 billion cubic feet per day dip in total gas demand amid lower power burn, according to data from S&P Global.
Meanwhile, gas output continued to remain elevated, averaging 116.6 Bcf/d over the past week, despite a 0.2 Bcf/d dip in imports from Canada.
In its weekly gas storage report on Thursday, the US Energy Information Administration reported a net injection of 16 Bcf of working gas into storage for the week ended Aug. 14, bringing total gas inventories to 3,169 Bcf, which was 28 Bcf, or 1% below prior year levels, but 185 Bcf, or 6% above the five-year average for the same period.
The net storage injection came in ahead of forecasts at 15 Bcf, but was sharply lower than last week's 36 Bcf build, the prior year's 19 Bcf injection and the five-year average of 29 Bcf, according to data compiled by Investing.com.
LNG export feedgas flows were expected at 17.73 Bcf/d on Friday, below the 30-day moving average of 17.97 Bcf/d, according to the Bloomberg LNG Feedgas Model.