Natural Gas Market Note | 06.18.2026
Futures turn back to the upside ahead of the long weekend.
Natural gas futures ended the holiday-shortened week on an uptick, with the prompt-month July 2026 contract gaining back yesterday’s losses and returning to the top of the weekly range. July added $0.09 to finish the week near $3.23 per MMBtu, virtually in line with Tuesday’s close. Price action is still pointing sideways, with benchmark futures bouncing mostly between $3.00 and $3.30 per MMBtu for the past several weeks. Gains extended beyond the balance of summer, with Winter 2026-27 adding 6 cents to end near $3.85 per MMBtu.
Today’s EIA storage report came in about as expected, with a build of 73 Bcf for the week ended June 12. This held inventories steady relative to the five-year average, while stocks slipped further below year-ago levels. The storage situation remains healthy heading into peak summer, but the tight underlying balance would become more important if significant heat starts showing up in the forecast.
On that note, we did see a warmer shift in the two-week outlook. While there is still no major heatwave in the works, cooler-than-normal weather is now expected to dissipate near the end of the two-week period and give way to a warmer-than-normal bias in the East. If this trend continues, it will exacerbate seasonal demand growth as the market transitions into July.
An archive of Daily Natural Gas Market Notes can be found here.