Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Natural gas futures fell for a fourth day, heading for the biggest weekly decline since August as forecasts showed cold weather will moderate later this month, reducing demand for the heating fuel. Gas dropped as much as 2.4 percent as temperatures will be in a normal range in the U.S. Northeast from Dec. 24 to Dec. 30, according to the National Weather Service. Weather has been colder than normal since last week. Gas stockpiles were 9.9 percent above five-year average in the week ended Dec. 10, according to the Energy Department. “It looks like maybe we are going to have some more moderate weather,” said Peter Beutel, president of trading advisory company Cameron Hanover Inc. in New Canaan, Connecticut. “We still have a lot of gas in storage to meet winter demand.” Natural gas for January delivery fell 4.3 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $4.005 per million British thermal units at 9:06 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 9.3 percent for the week. If futures settle at this level, the weekly loss will be the biggest since the five days ended Aug. 27. --Editor: Dan Stets To contact the reporter on this story: Moming Zhou in New York at Mzhou29@bloomberg.net; To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net

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