NEW YORK: US natural gas futures jumped almost 6% on Thursday on a smaller-than-expected weekly storage build, a continued decline in output and an increase in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said US utilities injected just 66 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage in the week ended September 18.

That was well below the 78-bcf build analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 97 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year (2015-19) average build of 80 bcf. Front-month gas futures rose 12.3 cents, or 5.8%, to settle at a one-week high of $2.248 per million British thermal units.