Building natural gas storage on both sides of the Atlantic points to further price downside.Increasingly bearish storage optics sent US prices plunging as low as the $2-teens per million Btu last week,with little on the horizon to stem the record refill rate,although European prices climbed temporarily on faltering Norwegian piped supply despite close-to-full storage tanks.Despite a two-week respite from unseasonably high week-ly injections-the US Energy Information Administration(EIA)reported a build of 36 billion cubic feet for the week ended Jul.19,well under the 44 Bcf five-year average-the trend is bearish.The record refill pace should resume this week as early estimates for data to be reported on Jul.25 are for a build of 52 Bcf,which compares with a five-year average of 37 Bcf.The EIA has reported a cumulative record storage injection of 1.46 trillion cubic feet,bringing inventories to 2.569 Tcf(73 billion cubic meters).When the season began,analysts fretted that end-October inventories could struggle to reach 3.4 Tcf; Energy Intelligence's Research & Advisory team now expects storage to enter winter at a comfortable 3.7 Tcf-3.8 Tcf.
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