Natural gas futures rose for the third day this week before a government report today that may show U.S. inventories dropped more than average last week. Gas gained as much as 0.7 percent as the Energy Department may say stockpiles declined 234 billion cubic feet in the week ended Feb. 11, according to the median of 25 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The five-year average withdrawal for the week is 150 billion, according to the department. “We are going to have a big storage pull today and that may help the bulls,” said Brad Florer, a trader at Kottke Associates Inc., an energy trading firm in Louisville, Kentucky. “But the bears will have the upper hand, since we are moving out of winter into spring.” Natural gas for March delivery rose 1.1 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $3.932 per million British thermal units at 9:23 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The futures have declined 11 percent this year. To contact the reporters 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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