Natural-gas futures extended their decline Thursday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a weekly increase in domestic natural-gas supplies that was lower than the market forecast. Inventories of the fuel in storage rose by 96 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 19, the EIA said. Analysts called for a storage increase of 101 billion cubic feet on average, according to a survey conducted by S&P Global Commodity Insights. Total working gas in storage for the latest week was at 2.336 trillion cubic feet, up 529 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 340 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. Following the data, June natural gas NGM23 was down 4.6 cents, or 1.9%, at $2.352 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded at $2.38 shortly before the supply data.
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