In the week ending January 23, 2026, U.S. energy companies extracted 242 billion cubic feet of natural gas from storage, surpassing expectations, driven by higher heating demands due to colder-than-normal weather. This compares to a withdrawal of 307 billion cubic feet during the corresponding week of the previous year, and a typical five-year average decline of 208 billion cubic feet for this period. Consequently, natural gas reserves dropped to 2.823 trillion cubic feet, which is 7.9% higher than the same time last year and 5.3% above the five-year average. During the previous week, ending January 16, utilities had removed 120 billion cubic feet of gas from storage.