Natural-gas futures slipped Thursday after news that stockpiles fell last week by nearly 30% less than they usually do at this time of year. The front-month January contract settled down 7.2 cents, or 1.9%, at $3.634 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It is only 2% above the low closing price of the year set Oct. 27, $3.561/mmBtu. Storage levels shrank by 51 billion cubic feet in the week ended Dec. 5, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That was less than the 72 bcf drain for this week a year ago and below the 92-bcf five-year average, likely because unseasonably warm weather led to softer demand for heating, analysts said. Prices initially went up on the news because the drain was larger than the 6 bcf expected by analysts and brokers surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. But they flipped […]