NEW YORK: US natural gas futures slid about 2% on Wednesday on record gas production and lowered forecasts for temperatures and heating demand next week that should allow utilities to keep pulling less gas from storage than usual through the end of December.

Analysts forecast there was around 8.7% more gas in storage than usual for this time of year.

Still, record amounts of gas flowed to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants and forecasts were lifted for gas demand this week.

Front-month gas futures for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 4.5 cents, or 1.8%, to settle at $2.447 per million British thermal units (mmBtu).

A lack of big price moves in recent weeks has cut historic or actual 30-day close-to-close futures volatility to 45.3%, the lowest since September 2021 for a second day in a row.

Historic daily volatility hit a record high of 177.7% in February 2022 and a record low of 7.3% in June 1991. Historic volatility has averaged 71.0% so far this year, versus a record high of 92.8% in 2022 and a five-year (2018-2022) average of 57.9%.