Natural gas storage volumes recover

The volume of natural gas in underground storage fell last week but was much higher than it was at the same time last year, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported.

The EIA’s weekly storage report Wednesday said that utilities had 3.22 trillion cubic feet of gas in storage as of Friday, a 26 billion cubic feet decrease from the previous week.

{mosads}Stockpiles were 232 billion cubic feet more than in the same week last year, the EIA said, and only 81 billion cubic feet less than the five-year average for that time.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters expected, on average, for the storage volume to be 38 billion cubic feet below the five-year average.

Gas storage usually declines in the late fall and early winter as utilities use it to meet winter heating demand.

But last winter as abnormally cold, causing historic withdrawals of stored gas throughout the winter.

EIA said the storage volume for last week is within the range of the last five years.