The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday morning that U.S. natural gas stocks decreased by 25 billion cubic feet for the week ending March 25. Analysts were expecting a storage withdrawal of around 20 billion to 24 billion cubic feet. The five-year average for the week is a withdrawal of around 25 billion cubic feet, and last year’s withdrawal for the week totaled 10 billion cubic feet. Natural gas inventories rose by 15 billion cubic feet in the prior week.

Natural gas futures for May delivery traded up about 1% in advance of the EIA’s report, at around $2.02 per million BTUs, and traded around $1.98 after the data release. Last Thursday, natural gas closed at $1.88 per million BTUs. On Wednesday the contract posted its high for the past four trading days at $2.02 and closed at $2.00. The 52-week range for natural gas is $1.73 to $3.17. One year ago the price for a million BTUs was around $3.02.

The natural gas injection season officially ends Thursday, March 31, and it would take a withdrawal of nearly 100 billion cubic feet this week to fail to set an all-time record for natural gas in storage at the end of the injection season. In 2012, the injection season ended with 2.369 trillion cubic feet of gas in storage.

The weather is unlikely to be a factor for the period. Temperatures are expected to be cooler in the Midwest and Northeast, but not until next week. For the rest of this week, temperatures are expected to stay warmer than normal.

Stockpiles are about 68% above their levels of a year ago and about 52% above the five-year average.

The EIA reported that U.S. working stocks of natural gas totaled about 2.468 trillion cubic feet, around 843 billion cubic feet above the five-year average of 1.625 trillion cubic feet and 1.002 trillion cubic feet above last year’s total for the same period. Working gas in storage totaled 1.466 trillion cubic feet for the same period a year ago.

Here’s how share prices of the largest U.S. natural gas producers reacting to this latest report:

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the country’s largest producer of natural gas, traded up about 0.2%, at $84.67 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.09.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) traded up about 2.9% to $4.12. The stock’s 52-week range is $1.50 to $16.98.

EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) traded up about 0.5% to $74.00. The 52-week range is $57.15 to $101.36.

In addition, the United States Natural Gas ETF (NYSEMKT: UNG) traded down about 0.6%, at $6.72 in a 52-week range of $5.78 to $15.28.

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