Adds latest prices, context

Jan 27 (Reuters) -U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 6% on Friday from a 20-month low in the prior session as late buying during a low-volume day ahead of the expiration of the February contract caused prices to swing wildly from negative to positive several times in the last half hour of trade.

Traders noted this usually happens as some gas sellers seek to exit their front-month futures positions on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) before they expire because they do not want to deliver gas to the Henry Hub in Louisiana.

Volatility often peaks near contract expiration days because trading volumes are usually extremely low since few in the market want to deliver or take gas from the Henry Hub.

There were only about 3,476 front-month contracts traded on the NYMEX on Friday. That compares with an average of 138,000 front-month contracts traded daily on the NYMEX over the past five years (2018 to 2022).

In 2022, gas prices soared by a record 46% on the day the February contract expired before plunging 26% the next day when the March contract became the new front-month.

On its last day as the front-month, gas futures NGc1 for February delivery rose 16.5 cents, or 5.6%, to settle at $3.109 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). On Thursday, the contract closed at its lowest since May 2021.

For the week, the contract lost about 2%, putting it down for a sixth week in a row for the first time since October. During those six weeks, the front-month has dropped about 53%.

The March NGH23 contract, which will soon be the front-month, was little changed on Friday at $2.84 per mmBtu.

Earlier in the day, gas futures were down about 4% due in part to a growing belief that there is more than enough gas in storage for the rest of the winter.

The weather, meanwhile, is expected to turn from warmer than normal now to colder than normal from Jan. 30 to Feb. 6 before turning warmer than normal again through mid-February.

That should keep heating demand mostly low, at least when the weather is warmer than normal, and allow utilities to continue pulling less gas from storage for at least a fourth or even fifth week in a row. Gas stockpiles were currently about 5% above the five-year (2018-2022) average and are on track to rise to 7% above normal in next week's federal storage report. EIA/GAS NGAS/POLL

The biggest wild card in the gas market remains when Freeport LNG's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas will exit a seven-month outage caused by a fire in June 2022.

The market cares about Freeport, the second biggest U.S. LNG export plant, because traders expect prices to jump once the facility starts pulling in big amounts of gas, boosting demand for the fuel. The plant can pull in about 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas and turn it into LNG.

That is about 2% of what U.S. gas producers pull from the ground each day.

On Thursday, federal regulators approved Freeport's plan to start cooling down parts of the plant. That is an early step in the restart process, but will not result in big gas flows anytime soon.

The company still has to go back to regulators to get permission to restart the liquefaction trains that turn the gas into LNG for export.

Several analysts have said they don't expect to see much LNG production at Freeport until March or later. Analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note on Friday that they expect Freeport to restart in mid-February, but noted it would take until the end of March before all three liquefaction trains were back in operation.

Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Sharon Singleton and Jonathan Oatis

For Refinitiv type ENERGY in Eikon search bar and then go to the GAS drop down and the NORTH AMERICA drop down or see: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageid=usa-gas 
For Interactive Map, type 'Interactive Map' in the box at upper left of the Reuters nEiko terminal. 
For graphics on Baker Hughes rig counts, see: http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/15/rigcount/index.html 
For next-day SNL U.S. gas prices, see: 0#SNL-NG 
For next-day SNL U.S. power prices, see: 0#SNL-PWR 
For U.S. natgas price and storage polls, see: NGAS/POLL 
For U.S. nuclear power outages, see: NUKE/ 
For U.S. Northwest hydro power report, see: NWRFC 
For U.S./Canada natural gas rig count vs Henry Hub futures price, see: http://tmsnrt.rs/2eT9k44 
For the U.S. natural gas speed guide, see: USGAS 
For the U.S. power speed guide, see: USPOWER

To determine CFTC managed money net position add (NYMEX Henry Hub options and futures combined 3023651MNET) plus (ICE Henry Hub options and futures combined 3023391MNET divided by four) plus (NYMEX Henry Hub swaps options and futures combined 303565BMNET divided by four) plus (NYMEX Henry Hub penultimate gas swaps 303565CMNET divided by four)

NYMEX Henry Hub options and futures combined 0#3CFTC023651

NYMEX Henry Hub futures only 0#1CFTC023651

ICE Henry Hub options and futures combined 0#3CFTC023391

NYMEX Henry Hub swaps options and futures combined 0#3CFTC03565B

NYMEX Henry Hub Penultimate gas swaps 0#3CFTC03565C