Cold weather and a big fall in inventories has allowed US natural gas futures to clamber above $4.50 per million British thermal units. The February contract closed on Thursday at $4.695, up 13.4 cents on the day and nearly 30 cents from the same time last week.
Supporting the gains were data from the Energy Information Administration showing a fall of 243 billion cubic feet in US stocks in the latest week to 2.716
