-- US natural gas futures were up on Thursday amid forecasts of strong storage injections for this week and a relatively bullish weather forecast.
The front-month Henry Hub contract and the continuous benchmark both rose 0.84% to settle at $2.63 per million British thermal units.
This comes ahead of the Energy Information Administration's weekly gas storage report on Thursday, with forecasts expecting a net injection of 55 Bcf into storage for the week, up from 50 Bcf last week and 16 Bcf during the corresponding period a year ago, according to data compiled by Investing.com.
Meanwhile, gas demand for power generation was up 5 Bcf, but was offset by a 5 Bcf decline in residential and commercial demand, according to NRG Energy.
This was attributed to milder weather conditions in recent weeks, which weighed on natural gas heating demand, as most parts of the country experienced above-normal temperatures.
Weather forecasts have since turned relatively bullish, with only parts of the south and southeast set to experience above-normal temperatures, while the southwestern and northeastern regions expected to see below-normal temperatures from April 23 to April 29, the National Weather Service said.