The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that domestic natural-gas supplies fell by 72 billion cubic feet for the week ended March 17. On average, analysts forecast a decline of 71 billion cubic feet in a survey conducted by S&P Global Commodity Insights. Total working gas stocks in storage for the latest week was at 1.9 trillion cubic feet, up 504 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 351 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. Following the data, April natural gas NGJ23 was up 1.6 cents, or 0.7%, at $2.187 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded at $2.198 before the supply data.
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