While oil prices retreated on Thursday, natural gas futures forged ahead to achieve their best settlement since September, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
July West Texas Intermediate crude slid 67 cents, or 1.3%, to settle at $50.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after reaching $51.23 a barrel on Wednesday.
On London’s ICE Futures Exchange, the global benchmark, August Brent crude, fell 56 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $51.95 a barrel after Wednesday’s finish of $52.51 a barrel.
“Although there is potential for a small decline to develop into a more significant drop, so far this looks like a modest technical correction following three days of gains rather than a major reversal,” said Tim Evans, energy analyst at Citi Futures and OTC Clearing.
Meanwhile, natural gas reached its highest settlement since September 28 as the July settlement climbed 14.9 cents, or 6%, to end trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange at $2.617 per million British thermal units.
Natural gas is “still cheap enough at these levels to drive decent power sector natural gas consumption,” said Richard Hastings, macro strategist at Seaport Global Securities. Supply increases “have been trending below some of the big historical comparisons, largely due to coal-to-gas switching.”