Wednesday’s futures increase of nearly a quarter, extending a rally into its fourth day, was the main ingredient in the recipe for rising prices at almost all points Thursday, but a dash of heating load in parts of the northern market areas along with a pinch of remaining cooling load from the western end of the South though the desert Southwest also were part of the mix.

Also, some buyers likely were topping off their storage accounts in anticipation of colder than normal temperatures forecast for next week from the south-central U.S. through much of the South and including virtually all of the Midwest and Northeast, one source said.

Overall gains ranged from a penny (Transwestern-West Texas and NGPL Amarillo Mainline) to about 40 cents (NGPL LA). Rockies points tended to see most of the smaller upticks.

Although the October aftermarket got off to a weak start and still has the potential for crashing as storage facilities run out of space to accommodate more gas, the strong price gains from Monday, Wednesday and Thursday have all points trading at least a quarter or more above their first-of-month indexes, with several in the Rockies sporting dollar-plus premiums.

A further screen rise of 30.3 cents Thursday and cooling weekend weather trends give the cash market a good shot at sustaining firmer prices Friday, although one trader expects the Rockies to soften a bit. November futures made their advance despite a slightly bearish storage report, in which the Energy Information Administration estimated a 73 Bcf build for the week ending Sept. 29, bringing stocks to 3,327 Bcf with another month to go in the traditional injection season. The EIA volume was within the range of prior expectations but towards their higher end.

A Canadian high-pressure system will bring frost and some freezing temperatures to upstate New York and parts of northern New England Friday morning, according to The Weather Channel (TWC). Most of the Midwest should be a bit milder than that for a while longer, but a cold front is due to bring considerably more chill to the region early next week. And much of the West will be as much as five to 10 degrees below average by Saturday, TWC said.

In the South, it’s a tale of two climates. At the western end in Louisiana and Texas, temperatures high enough to support air conditioning load will be sustained into the weekend. But to the east, mid-autumn weather is setting in. Atlanta and Charlotte, NC were due to see daily highs shrink from the upper 80s Thursday to the mid 70s and around 60 degrees(!), respectively, Friday.

This season’s rapid storage refill has at least one western facility already full and another close to it. Northwest, which requires firm storage customers to fill their Jackson Prairie accounts by Sept. 30, said all 22,651,887 dekatherms of Jackson Prairie working gas capacity is in use. And of the Clay Basin facility’s total capacity of 51,386,250 dekatherms, 49,618,893 dekatherms (or 96.56%) was in place as of Sept. 30, operator Questar said. After an injection test next Wednesday, Clay Basin will be shut in Oct. 12-18.

A western marketer said the overall market may continue to get stronger Friday, but he expects Rockies market to weaken due to maintenance constraints. Currently there is very little demand in the West and storage outlets for new production are quickly getting choked off, he said. The marketer noted that as the screen strengthened Thursday, the spreads for gas coming out of Canada weakened. He said some people were actually selling gas from storage to take advantage of Thursday’s price strength.

A trader in the Upper Midwest said local weather was chillier Thursday, but the weekend should be “pretty nice” with high temperatures getting into the low 70s by Sunday. However, that will be followed early next week by a cold spell that will take low temperatures below freezing at times, she said. She said her company found it hard to the rising prices of the past two days when so many storage facilities are either already full or close to it.

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