Natural gas made steady gains Thursday on signs of a rare reprieve from chronic oversupply. Gas prices have been resilient all month, defying a near-record number of bets that money managers placed against them in recent weeks. A hot spell spread across the country raised demand for gas-fired power just as production cuts and pipeline outages started to choke back supply. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday storage levels grew by 75 billion cubic feet, 13% below the five-year average, in the week ended June 19. It is the smallest storage addition in more than two months, and suggests the market has come back into balance after a long period of booming supply repeatedly outpacing demand. Prices for the front-month July contract settled up 9.1 cents, or 3.3%, to $2.85 a million British thermal unit on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gains put gas […]