American natural gas futures fell by around 4% on Thursday. They hit their lowest level in two weeks.

Natural gas futures contracts for January deliveries on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by 16.3% cents, or 3.6%, to $4.432 per million British thermal units (MBtu).

This price drop preceded publication, Thursday, of a federal report that should show that samples in stocks last week were much larger than usual for This time of year, consumers burned more gas than the normal to heat their homes and businesses during the period of extreme cold.

Analysts predict that businesses Energy companies removed 166 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas from stocks in during the week ending December 5.