C Citigroup Inc

By Alison Sider 
 

Analysts expect government data scheduled for release Thursday to show natural-gas inventories last week rose by less than average for this time of year.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is expected to report that storage levels rose by 42.7 billion cubic feet of gas during the week ended Aug. 26, according to the average forecast of 15 analysts, brokers and traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

The EIA is scheduled to release its storage data for the week on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. ET.

For the Aug. 26 week, the median estimate is for an increase of 42 bcf. Estimates range from an increase of 35 bcf to a gain of 48 bcf.

The estimate for Aug. 26 compares to 88 bcf added to storage for the same week last year and a five-year average build of 67 bcf for that week.

If the storage estimate is correct, inventories as of Aug. 26 totaled 3.393 trillion cubic feet, 7.3% above levels from a year ago and 10.6% above the five-year average for the same week.

Write to Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 31, 2016 14:36 ET (18:36 GMT)

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