Continuing cold in a number of weekend forecasts, abetted to some degree by the previous day’s 4.6-cent gain by November futures, kept a majority of points on the rise Friday. However, anticipation of milder weather returning to several areas early this week combined with the usual weekend decline of industrial load to induce softness at a greater number of locations than on Thursday.

Most points were flat to about 15 cents higher, with most of the gains in single digits. The Carthage Hub in East Texas saw an unusually large loss of about 75 cents; otherwise, declines were much more sedate in ranging from 2-3 cents to about 20 cents.

Monday’s cash market will see a major increase in prior-trading day screen support after the November natural gas futures contract followed the lead of strength in Nymex’s petroleum-based offerings and was influenced by last week’s overall cash firmness in rising 29.9 cents Friday (see related story).

A second storm kept snow, rain and wind in the weekend forecast from the Northeast through the Mid-Atlantic, but Northeast citygates were mostly softer as the storm was expected to have departed the region by Monday, leaving drier and slightly warmer conditions behind. Weekend lows in the 30s were expected to continue to dominate the Midwest through the weekend, but the region also was due to begin seeing some moderation early this week.

Meanwhile, despite the price weakness in its key Northeast market area, the Gulf Coast was able to sustain gains for the most part because the South was about to begin experiencing a “very chilly period,” according to The Weather Channel (TWC). Weekend temperatures were expected to be 10 to more than 20 degrees below average, TWC said, and by Sunday lows would be hitting the 40s down to the northern Gulf Coast and northern Florida, while such southeastern locations as Atlanta, Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina and Birmingham, AL, would be flirting with the upper 30s.

However, parts of the desert Southwest are starting to feel like summer has returned. Weather Central said Phoenix could expect a high around 100 Saturday. One western source said such heat levels have been known to persist into November at times.

Western Canada was to be warming up after sub-freezing lows earlier in the week, while all but the higher elevations of the Rockies would stay comfortably above the freezing level during the weekend.

Noting that Midwest storage was at or near full capacity, a Kinder Morgan spokesman said its NGPL subsidiary was in a similar situation, having already discontinued interruptible service on its lines to the Midwest.

A Gulf Coast trader said she thought Northeast prices were generally softer because a warm-up was expected to be setting in by the end of the weekend. She considered it a toss-up on whether Friday’s futures run-up will be able to compensate for diminishing heating load in keeping prices rising Monday.

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey/the Gerdes Group analysts noted Friday that Canadian storage inventories actually declined by 2 Bcf in the previous week, “which contrasts with the 7 Bcf storage increase typically seen [at] this time of year.” In fact, it was the earliest withdrawal from Canadian storage since 2003, they said, “though this is not overly surprising given recent cold weather and Canadian gas production…running at its lowest level in over a decade.”

Meanwhile, the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count recorded one of its rare retreats over the past three months in rigs actively drilling for natural gas in the United States during the week ending Oct. 16. The tally was down five to 721, Baker Hughes said, with most of the loss (four) occurring in the Gulf of Mexico while one rig quit the search onshore. Its latest count is 2% higher than a month ago but 53% less than the year-ago level.

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