Continued Nymex upticks Friday following Thursday’s energy futures spikes proved strong enough to offset generally mild weather forecasts and rally weekend cash prices at nearly all points.

Some flat to moderately lower numbers were recorded, primarily in the West, but not all of the West was softer as other points in the region joined the East in gains ranging from about a nickel to 20 cents.

It didn’t occur until much too late to affect cash trading, but what had been a nameless tropical wave in the eastern Caribbean during the morning and early afternoon leaped rapidly in strength to become Tropical Storm Mindy late Friday afternoon. Mindy formed near the northeastern tip of the Dominican Republic, according to the National Hurricane Center, and tropical storm warnings were issued for the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. At 5 p.m. AST the storm’s center was about 250 miles southeast of Grand Turk Island and moving toward the northwest at nearly 12 mph.

Mindy’s chances of getting into the Gulf of Mexico were difficult to gauge at deadline Friday, but traders should have a much clearer grasp of the potential when they return to their offices Monday morning.

Meanwhile, a Canadian producer summed up Friday’s market in saying, “The news of the day is this Nymex ‘juggernaut.’ A lot of futures traders are short, so they’re obligated to deliver gas at Henry Hub for November and thus have to buy contracts back to cover their position.” Fundamentally there’s no reason for cash or screen strength right now, he went on, “but technically there is.”

November natural gas realized less than half of its previous day’s advance but still was strong by rising nearly 16 cents. The crude oil contract also was a bit more subdued, but still gained just shy of a dollar to settle at a nice round $32.00/bbl. Heating oil and unleaded gasoline also continued to soar as concerns persisted about the adequacy of heating oil inventories for this winter.

Storage is getting full, but the “fear of winter” is driving prices higher, the producer said. Screen-cash spreads are so wide that people are “trying to find holes and take advantage of forward-carry numbers,” he added.

An East Coast utility buyer had no weekend spot purchases to report, saying, “We’ve been burning quite a bit of oil lately.” However, she wasn’t sure how long that would continue in light of how crude prices have been spiking recently.

Both of the big California distributors issued Saturday OFOs related to high linepack (see Transportation Notes). Curiously, only the one by SoCalGas seemed to have a negative price effect, sending border and San Juan numbers down by close to a dime while Permian/Waha quotes were flat. Malin and PG&E citygate prices managed to shrug off PG&E’s OFO with gains of about a dime.

Sonat was a rare flat non-western point. The pipeline again declined to issue an OFO for Saturday, but said one was “highly likely” for long imbalances Sunday and “too close to call” Monday.

An eastern utility buyer expressed frustrations that “we went all summer with moderate weather, and have done well in catching up on storage injections, yet this market can’t seem to go below $5 for more than a little while. Somehow it manages to stand up without much fundamental demand, and then when it finds the least little positive influence, prices are off to the races again.”

Most regions were anticipating mild weekend weather, but a new stormy cold front was due to begin moving through British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest Saturday, eventually proceeding into the northern Plains and on toward the Midwest early this week.

Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper gave an initial estimation of a “build above 80 Bcf” in this week’s storage report. That would handily surpass volumes of 48 Bcf a year ago and 51 Bcf in the five-year average.

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