Natural-gas futures declined Wednesday as traders paused following a runup that sent prices near six-month highs while they weighed differing short- and long-term weather outlooks. Natural gas for January delivery settled 1.6 cents lower, or 0.4%, to $3.960 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the session, prices climbed as high as $4.013 mmBtu, the second time this week they briefly crossed levels last reached in June. “The $4 level seems to be a bit of a hurdle,” said Addison Armstrong, senior director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Conn. “The rally we had experienced had been accomplished by a tremendous amount of short covering, but […]