Natural gas futures slumped toward the end of the trading week after a slightly larger-than-expected build in US inventories. The bearish pattern in natural gas markets persists, with the contract poised to record another weekly loss. Can bulls show signs of life?

June natural gas futures shed $0.01, or 0.4%, to $2.29 per million British thermal units (Btu) at 14:41 GMT on Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas prices will post a weekly loss of at least 2%, adding to their year-to-date decline of nearly 43%.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), domestic inventories of natural gas increased by 79 billion cubic feet for the week ending April 21, up from 75 billion cubic feet in the previous week. This was also higher than the market estimate of 75 billion cubic feet.

This represented the third consecutive weekly supply injection.

In total, US supplies of natural gas stand at 2.009 trillion cubic feet, up 525 billion cubic feet from the same time a year ago. They are also 365 billion cubic feet above the five-year average of 1.644 trillion cubic feet.

Looking ahead, market analysts expect another injection next week as the weather outlook remains decent enough to avoid more cooling or heating demand days.

Ultimately, industry observers are preparing for larger inventory builds for most of May unless temperatures turn hotter.

In other energy commodities, June West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures rose $0.53, or 0.71%, to $74.85 per barrel. June Brent crude futures jumped $0.38, or 0.49%, to $78.12 a barrel. June gasoline futures slid $0.0076, or 0.3%, to $2.5049 per gallon. June heating oil futures shed $0.0101, or 0.43%, to $2.3591 a gallon.