Natural gas prices for September delivery fell 3% over the week, following the release of disappointing US economic data.
 
A government report released earlier this week showed that orders placed with US manufacturers fell in June. Gas futures prices lost 1.6% immediately after the release of the report, which revealed that manufacturing orders slipped 0.8% in June. Orders for machinery and computers fell sharply. Industrial demand accounts for about 28% of US gas consumption, according to the Energy Department. On Thursday morning natural gas futures for September delivery were trading flat at $4.1 per million British thermal units.
 
Markets eagerly await the EIA’s weekly report on US natural gas stockpiles for the week ending 29 July. The report is expected to show that US natural gas inventories increased by 39 billion cubic feet, after adding 43 billion cubic feet in the previous week. Supporting the lower demand for natural gas has been the intensifying debt crisis in Europe and the increase in the US debt ceiling, which investors believe has done little to resolve the country’s underlying problems.