US natural gas inventories are starting winter 2024 6% above the 5-year average despite less storage injections due to starting inventories being relatively full. Lower natural gas prices in 2024 encouraged producers to curtail production which reduced injections. A cold start to December gave way to a prompt warm up which will hold near-term gas futures that settled at $3.21/MMbtu. The winter outlook provided by the EIA, predicts that this heating season’s inventories will be 6% above the 5-year average barring any extreme weather conditions.