EIA reports a 71 billion cubic foot weekly rise in U.S. natural-gas supplies

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that domestic supplies of natural gas rose by 71 billion cubic feet for the week ended May 7. That was generally in line with the average increase of 70 billion cubic feet forecast by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts. The EIA said the data, however, included an adjustment to the week's total to account for a reclassification of some gas stocks from working gas to base gas. Working gas is the volume of gas available in the market. Total stocks now stand at 2.029 trillion cubic feet, down 378 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 72 billion cubic feet below the five-year average, the government said. Following the data, June natural gas NGM21, +0.24% was up nearly 0.1% at $2.97 per million British thermal units. It traded at $2.96 shortly before the data.