Natural-gas futures dipped briefly Thursday morning after the federal government reported the largest gas surplus of the year, but not the record some traders wanted. Producers added 119 billion cubic feet of gas to storage for the week ended May 30, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That is 2 bcf more than what 21 traders, brokers and analysts forecast in a Wall Street Journal survey. Natural gas for July delivery dropped as much as 5 cents in the minutes after the data release. It climbed back up and recently traded up 0.2 cent, or 0.04%, to $4.642 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Traders use the EIA update to gauge how quickly stockpiles are recovering from high demand that drained them to 11-year lows this winter. The market has been inching up this week in part because stockpiles had […]