Because of an almost record production and large quantities of stored gas, gas futures American prices fell by about 2% on Thursday.

Natural gas futures contracts for December deliveries on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by 7.1 cents, or 1.6%, to $4.479 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) at 8:44 EST (13:44 GMT).

This price drop also came before the publication, later in the day on Thursday, of a federal report on inventories, which should show that energy companies have drawn on gas in their reserves last week, in cold weather, for the first times this winter.

Analysts predict that businesses Energy companies removed 13 billion cubic feet (Gft3) of gas from stocks in during the week ending November 14.