Natural Gas Market Note | 07.01.2026
Back-and-forth price action continues as heat intensifies.
Natural gas futures moved lower on Wednesday, with the pullback again led by the front of the curve. The August 2026 NYMEX contract fell 5 cents to finish at $3.22 per MMBtu, while the balance of summer slipped to $3.18. Losses were more muted farther out the curve, with Winter 2026–27 down 2 cents to $3.75 and Calendar 2027 easing to $3.44. Price action remains largely rangebound, with prompt-month futures still holding in the same broad $3.00–$3.30 per MMBtu band that has defined the market since late May.
The heat remains the bigger near-term story, with Thursday and Friday expected to be the hottest days of the summer so far. Power generation demand for natural gas is already approaching 49 Bcf today and should reach 50 Bcf per day or more tomorrow as cooling load peaks across the Midwest and East. That would mark the highest demand levels of the summer so far and should sharply limit storage injections for the week, but the market still appears reluctant to break higher until there is more confidence that above-normal temperatures can persist beyond the holiday weekend.
Tomorrow’s storage report is expected to show a larger-than-normal injection, with analysts surveyed by The Wall Street Journal looking for an 81-Bcf build into U.S. inventories. That would compare with the five-year average of 64 Bcf for the same week, lifting the surplus to 169 Bcf, its widest level since mid-January. The projected build would also narrow the deficit to year-ago levels to just 29 Bcf, marking the first weekly injection since April to outpace the corresponding week in 2025.
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