Natural-gas futures rose Wednesday with traders expecting another drop in natural-gas stockpiles to be announced Thursday. Natural gas for May delivery settled up 8.8 cents at $4.364 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gains ended a string of three-straight losing sessions that had seen gas drop below $4.28/MMBtu. Analysts and traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect natural-gas stockpiles to fall by 75 billion cubic feet in the data to be released Thursday at 10:30 a.m. ET by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That level of withdrawal would be 20 billion cubic feet more than the prior week at a time when stockpiles are already at an 11-year low. The expectations probably led to the price backlash, market observers said. “I think this is a classic battle,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group […]