Investing.com - Natural gas prices rose on Wednesday amid expectations that seasonably warm temperatures will hike demand for the commodity at the nation's thermal power plants as households crank up their air conditioning.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, natural gas futures for delivery in October were up 1.51% at $4.009 per million British thermal units during U.S. trading. The commodity hit a session low of $3.966, and a high of $4.032.
The October contract settled down 0.75% on Tuesday to end at $3.949 per million British thermal units.
Natural gas futures were likely to find support at $3.732 per million British thermal units, the low from Aug. 17, and resistance at $4.172, the high from July 14.
Updated weather forecasting models called for seasonably warm temperatures across most of the country for the coming days, with parts of the eastern and central U.S. seeing above-normal mercury readings into the first week of September.
Supplies remained in focus as well.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly storage report slated for release on Thursday is expected to show an increase of 79 billion cubic feet in the week ending Aug. 22.
Inventories rose by 65 billion cubic feet in the same week a year earlier, while the five-year average change is a build of 58 billion cubic feet.
Injections of gas into storage have surpassed the five-year average for 18 consecutive weeks, alleviating concerns over tightening supplies.
Total U.S. natural gas storage stood at 2.555 trillion cubic feet as of last week, narrowing the deficit to the five-year average to 17.3% from 18.9% a week earlier and down from a record 54.7% at the end of March.
Elsewhere on the NYMEX, light sweet crude oil futures for delivery in October were down 0.40% at $93.48 a barrel, while heating oil for October delivery were down 0.28% at $2.8409 per gallon.