NYMEX May natural gas futures settled 7.4 cents higher at $2.684/MMBtu Thursday on apparent short covering, sources said, despite a bearish government storage report that showed an inventory build above expectations. US natural gas in storage rose 63 Bcf to 1.539 Tcf for the week ended April 10, the Energy Information Administration said Thursday. This was above Platts consensus expectations of an injection of between 48 Bcf and 52 Bcf. Though May futures were down 4.6 cents as of 10:55 am EDT (1455 GMT) Thursday in response to the bearish storage report, prices rocketed higher during the course of the trading day in a surprising reversal. Some traders and analysts chalked up the move to short sellers exiting the market. “I think what’s happened here is that we triggered another round of short covering,” said Gene McGillian, senior analyst at Tradition Energy. “It’s probably a combination of [forecasts callings […]