U.S. natural gas futures posted their biggest-single-day gain since January as a pipeline outage Thursday in West Virginia led to supply disruptions.

TC Energy said it detected a natural gas leak at the Saunders Creek Regulator Station in West Virginia around 8:35 a.m. ET and "immediately activated emergency response procedures."

The company said it reduced the pressure of natural gas to isolate the station, and notified customers of delivery impacts. The situation was confined to the Saunders Creek station, TC Energy added.

The outage sent natural gas futures higher, with the October contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settling up 9.1% at $3.297 per million British thermal units, a three-month high.

Natural gas futures have been gradually rising as a warmer-than-usual September kept up power-sector demand through the tail end of summer, limiting inventory builds. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a 53 billion cubic foot injection into storage for last week, a sixth consecutive below-average build that reduced the surplus over the five-year average to 95 Bcf from 118 Bcf the previous week.

"Today's storage number was no surprise but it did solidify the now six-week trend of tepid growth," said Andy Huenefeld of Pinebrook Energy Advisors. "We don't have major concerns about the inventory level going into winter, but some of the more bearish scenarios are now off the table."