Natural-gas futures prices closed up for the first time in a week after a weekly U.S. stockpile report showed a smaller surplus than expected. Prices for the front-month August contract settled up 8.5 cents, or 2.3%, to $3.847 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It is the market’s largest gain and its first gain of more than 2% since June 12. Producers added 90 billion cubic feet of gas to storage in the week ended July 18, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. The addition was 6 billion cubic feet less than analysts and traders had expected and nearly double the five-year average for that week of the year. Tepid demand and record supply have combined to drive a broad selloff in the past month, shrinking the price of front-month gas by 20% since mid-June. Analysts said Thursday that the […]