EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report: Release Schedule and How to Read It

Last reviewed on October 3, 2026.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes the Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time. When a federal holiday falls in the release week, the report moves to another day and sometimes another time.

The latest figures and a 2026 storage chart are on our storage report hub.

Upcoming release dates (as of October 3, 2026)

The holiday changes above are taken from the EIA's official release schedule. Christmas Eve (December 24) and New Year's Eve (December 31) 2026 both fall on Thursdays; the EIA had not posted changes for those weeks when this page was reviewed, so check the schedule before those dates. In 2025 the late-December reports were moved to a Monday (December 29) and a Wednesday (December 31), both at 12:00 p.m.

What week does each report cover?

Each report measures working gas in storage as of Friday of the previous week. A Thursday, October 8 release, for example, reports inventories for the week ending Friday, October 2. That lag is why traders spend the week building their own estimates from weather and flow data before the official number comes out.

How long until the next report?

On a normal week the report lands at 10:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, which is 14:30 or 15:30 UTC depending on daylight saving time (15:30 UTC from early November to mid-March, 14:30 UTC the rest of the year). Many charting platforms and economic calendars show a countdown; our news page includes an economic calendar widget.

How to read the report

• Stocks: working gas in storage for the current and previous week, in billion cubic feet (Bcf), for the Lower 48 total and five regions — East, Midwest, Mountain, Pacific and South Central (split into salt and non-salt facilities).
• Net change: the difference between this week's and last week's stocks. Positive is an injection, negative a withdrawal. This is the headline number.
• Implied flow: the change after stripping out reclassifications or revisions to earlier weeks. When the EIA reclassifies gas (for example between working and base gas), net change and implied flow differ; the implied flow is the better guide to the physical market.
• Year-ago and five-year comparisons: stocks versus the same week last year and versus the average of the past five years, in Bcf and percent. The EIA updates the five-year window each January.
• Sampling error: the report is based on a survey sample (Form EIA-912), and the EIA publishes estimated standard errors for each region.

Consensus, surprises and price reaction

Before each release, news agencies and analysts publish surveys of expected injections or withdrawals. The market reaction depends on the surprise — the gap between the reported change and that consensus — and on whether it changes the outlook for end-of-season inventories. A 20 Bcf miss in mid-winter, when storage is tight, matters more than the same miss in a comfortable autumn. See our storage explainer for how storage feeds into Henry Hub prices.

Related EIA releases

• Natural Gas Weekly Update (Thursdays): prices, supply and demand indicators and LNG cargo counts.
• Natural Gas Monthly: official monthly production, consumption, imports and exports.
• Short-Term Energy Outlook (monthly): EIA forecasts for prices, production and storage.