Natural Gas Market Note | 04.02.2026
Prices little changed following announced storage build.
Natural gas prices finished the holiday-shortened week on a quiet note, with the prompt-month contract down marginally and contracts beyond the front of the curve virtually unchanged. This capped a week in which pricing drifted lower across the curve, with May 2026 moving further away from $3.00 resistance and ending near $2.80 per MMBtu.
The quiet day in natural gas contrasted with a major rally in crude oil, as prompt-month WTI rose by more than $11 to notch its first daily settlement above $110 per barrel since July 2022. The rally across the crude oil complex came in the wake of President Trump’s Wednesday night address to the nation, which appeared to squash any optimism for an imminent end to the war in Iran. That sentiment helped support a morning jump in Winter 2026-27 natural gas futures, but the rally fizzled, and that strip ended the day flat.
Today’s storage report marked the end of the traditional winter season for natural gas, with inventories posting a net build of 34 Bcf for the final full week of March. This capped a withdrawal season that featured a record weekly pull from storage in January, as well as a record three-week stretch of storage deductions during the extended cold snap. Even with this historic period of winter draws, the overall winter pull of 2,050 Bcf still ranked in the bottom half of seasonal storage withdrawals since 2010.
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