The amount of natural gas in U.S. storage beat market expectations by 1 Bcf, rising 55 Bcf for the week of Sept. 20, according to a reported released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Sept. 26.

Natural gas prices remained mostly flat for the day, after four weeks of mostly positive movement.

Natural gas prices have been slowly but steadily increasing since the end of August, when prices were under $2/MMBtu. Nymex Prices rose to $2.637/MMBtu on Sept. 25, the day before the storage report was released.

The natural gas price for the Nymex front-month futures sat at about $2.60 at market close on Sept. 26.

The EIA report showed 3.492 Tcf of natural gas in storage, an increase of 47 Bcf from the week before. However, the EIA reclassified 8 Bcf of gas in salt storage from working gas to base gas. The change meant that the implied flow of gas into storage was actually 55 Bcf.

EIA: Natural Gas Storage Report (Nearly) Meets Market Expectations

Analysts had forecast the week’s injection at 54 Bcf. East Daley Analytics estimated that an average of 70 Bcf/week will be injected into U.S. storage until the end of October, according to a Sept. 25 analysis.

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