1012 ET - U.S. natural gas futures continue trending higher while alternating between gains and losses from one day to the next. The market has found support with summer heat lasting into September, while solid production and comfortable inventory levels act as a counterweight. Thursday's report of a third straight below-average weekly storage build wasn't enough to hold resistance around the $3 level. "Labor Day weekend often reveals softening spot prices," Eli Rubin of EBW Analytics says in a note. "The primary near-term market dynamic, though, remains the tussle between a deepening year-over-year South Central [storage] deficit and weak Nymex winter contracts." Nymex gas is up 1.3% at $2.952/mmBtu.