EIA reports a weekly rise in U.S. natural-gas supplies, including a ‘reclassification’ of some stocks

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that U.S. natural-gas supplies in storage rose by 104 billion cubic feet for the week ended June 2. Analysts called for a storage increase of 114 billion cubic feet on average, according to a survey conducted by S&P Global Commodity Insights. The data, however, included revisions to figures tied to reclassifications of some natural gas in storage from working gas to base gas. Working gas is the volume of gas available in the market. The EIA’s reclassifications resulted in decreased working gas stocks of 14 bcf last week in the nonsalt South central region, so the implied flow for the week is an increase of 118 bcf to working gas stocks, the EIA said. Total working gas in storage for the latest week was at 2.550 trillion cubic feet, up 562 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 353 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said.