The cash market found enough cold weather remaining in the Midwest and Northeast and parts of the West to regain its footing and register generally small gains at a majority of points Tuesday. The return of industrial load after a holiday weekend hiatus also helped fuel the mini-rally.

The rebound from solid weekend softness was quite muted, with most upticks limited to about a nickel or less and only a few getting into the teens. There were also some scattered flat to modestly lower points thrown into the mix in several market areas.

One source said he expects the physical market to have at least another day or two of moderate bullishness left in it due to Tuesday’s natural gas futures gain of nearly 20 cents, especially when combined with spikes in Nymex’s petroleum products complex. On its expiration date, crude oil for March delivery skyrocketed by nearly $3 to settle above $51/bbl for the first time in more than three months.

Continuing cold weather in both the eastern U.S. and Europe, along with concerns about the declining value of the U.S. dollar and the possibility of an OPEC production cut, gave heating oil traders a scare, according to a Calgary-based producer. Despite all the talk recently among natural gas cash traders and analysts about how winter is rapidly approaching its end, there’s still enough time for some serious cold weather to put a dent in heating fuel supplies and allow gas prices to stay high even with the bearish situation in gas storage, he said.

Bidweek was starting slowly Tuesday for a Midcontinent/Southwest marketer, while the swing market remained in a lengthy doldrums, she said. She reported doing March deals Tuesday in the mid $5.40s at Waha and mid $5.20s at Transwestern-Permian. She also quoted these samples from an online trading service: Waha in the mid $5.30s to mid $5.40s; Transwestern West of Thoreau in the mid $5.20s to mid $6.30s; Panhandle Eastern from the mid $5.40s to the high $5.50s; PG&E-Topock in the high $5.40s; PG&E citygate in the high $5.80s; and Opal all the way from the low $5.20s to the high $5.30s.

A Gulf Coast marketer said he was “trading a little bit today for March,” but it also seemed like a slow start of bidweek to him. “There’s so much gas in storage” that he doesn’t expect much demand for new baseload production. A lot of people don’t have much discretion about taking gas out of storage during March, he noted. It’s the last month of the traditional withdrawal season, and some storage operators require full or near-full annual cycling of accounts, so some will be under mandatory withdrawal rules.

Unlike the others, a producer said he had a pretty active day in March business Tuesday. Most of his Chicago citygate sales were in the high $5.90s, but he said he saw a $6.09 print at mid-afternoon after quotes got pushed up by Nymex strength. “The screen ran, but Chicago didn’t really want to go with it,” the producer remarked. However, if futures hold up Wednesday, that should mean the citygate will go higher, he added.

Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper said his initial estimation for the storage withdrawal to be reported for the week ending Feb. 18 is in the low to mid 90s Bcf.

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