Nymex August futures settled on Friday at $5,730/MMBtu, an increase of 30.6 cents on the day. September futures contracts also rose by 32.0 cents to $5.712.

However, NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg prices continued to decline amid poor expectations for the Independence Day weekend, down 77 cents to $5,460.

Natural gas prices fell to their lowest level in three months, after the extended shutdown of a large LNG plant in Texas helped utilities increase their inventories. Natural gas futures were far from 14-year highs near $9.50 per million British thermal units touched less than a month ago.

The natural gas market was also shocked after the US Energy Information Administration on Thursday announced a larger-than-expected weekly increase in inventories. This raises concerns that the Freeport LNG terminal outage is having a greater impact on inventories than previously thought.