NEW YORK, Feb 13, 2026, 13:16 (EST) — Regular session
- March U.S. natural gas futures found their footing following an earlier steep slide.
- Inventories stayed under typical seasonal levels after a sharp storage withdrawal.
- Late-February temperature outlooks are on traders’ radar, along with next Thursday’s storage figures.
March U.S. natural gas futures clawed back earlier losses, ticking up 3.2 cents, or nearly 1%, to $3.249 per mmBtu as of 1:15 p.m. EST. Prices had dipped close to 3% earlier but rebounded within a $3.120 to $3.252 trading range on Friday. Thursday’s close came in at $3.217. Gas-focused leveraged ETFs split: BOIL edged up 0.6%, while KOLD slipped 0.6%.
The rebound’s important—traders are still sorting out how winter wraps up. Even a slight tweak in temperature outlooks can flip heating demand fast, and lately, futures have been volatile enough that those sharp intraday moves keep pulling in the quick-money crowd.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 249 billion cubic foot (Bcf) drop in working gas stocks, leaving 2,214 Bcf in storage for the week ended Feb. 6. That’s 97 Bcf less than a year ago, and 130 Bcf below the five-year average, according to the report. The next update lands Feb. 19.
The withdrawal landed short of the roughly 257 Bcf analysts had penciled in, yet it easily cleared the five-year norm—146 Bcf—for this point in the calendar, Barchart noted. Over at Commodity Weather Group, they’re projecting warmer-than-normal conditions sticking around the Midwest and South until Feb. 21, a pattern that tends to tamp down heating needs.
Supply hasn’t let up. According to LSEG, the Lower 48 is averaging 107.6 bcfd so far in February. The firm is calling for total demand—including exports—to drop to 124.0 bcfd next week, down from 141.3 bcfd this week. Feedgas deliveries to the eight major U.S. LNG export terminals came in at 18.5 bcfd month-to-date, LSEG says. Meanwhile, cash prices at West Texas’s Waha hub remained in the red for a sixth consecutive day—the 15th time this year—squeezed by pipeline bottlenecks holding back Permian Basin gas.
Andy Huenefeld at Pinebrook Energy Advisors flagged in a note that the latest report “increased the deficit to the five-year average to 130 Bcf,” describing it as “the widest gap in nearly a year.” Inventories, he pointed out, are now trailing year-ago levels again after a short-lived surplus earlier this winter—a sharp reversal that shows how fast things can tilt once cold weather hits. Energy Buyer’s Guide
The bearish scenario? Still clear enough. Should warm forecasts extend into early March and production hold high, storage deficits could narrow in a hurry. That would put recent gains at risk. Unexpected LNG terminal outages would hit demand too.
Focus shifts to U.S. weather model updates over the weekend and first pipeline nominations for clues on demand into next week. The next clear trigger is Thursday’s Feb. 19 storage report, which will indicate if withdrawals are still running high as the winter heating season edges toward its close.
