Dec 2 (Reuters) - The United States started the winter heating season with the highest levels of natural gas in storage since 2016, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Monday.

Working natural gas in storage in the Lower 48 states ended the natural gas injection season with 3,922 billion cubic feet, according to estimates based on the EIA's weekly natural gas storage report, published on Nov. 7.

The winter heating season spans the period between Nov. 1 and March 30, while the injection season runs from April 1 through Oct. 31.

Inventories are currently 6% above the five-year (2019–23) average, despite less-than-average injections into storage throughout the entire injection season, the EIA said.

Lower natural gas volumes than the five-year average were injected nearly every week during the 2024 injection season, in part because starting inventories were already relatively full, the EIA said.

However, natural gas injections into storage for the last two weeks of the injection season exceeded their five-year averages, further boosting the gas volumes in storage, the agency said.

U.S. natural gas futures dropped nearly 4% in early morning trading, pressured by an increase in output and forecasts for less cold weather, expected to lower heating demand over the coming week.

(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)

((Srivastava.Vallari@thomsonreuters.com;))