A couple of Northeast citygates averaged more than $37 Wednesday as prices rose at all points — mostly by large amounts. Traders returned from the long New Year’s weekend to find much of the U.S. and Canada enduring deep-freeze conditions that were most intense in the eastern halves of both nations and could be expected to last into Thursday.

Transco’s Zone 6-New York City pool recorded the day’s top single quote of $52, but Iroquois Zone 2 claimed the highest average of about $39.40 after gaining nearly $28 (Iroquois Zone 2 also was a close second in the running for top price with a quote of $50). Other Northeast delivery points also averaged in quadruple digits amid overall gains ranging from about 20 cents to nearly $28. Outside the Northeast the top advance was nearly $6.45.

Also outside the Northeast, the Florida citygate and four Gulf Coast points realized advances of more than a dollar. Florida Gas Transmission had an Overage Alert Day in effect Tuesday and Wednesday (see Transportation Notes).

The smallest gains were concentrated at western points, where freezing weather was not as pervasive as in the East.

Cash numbers also had some extra backing from a significantly higher-than-expected storage addition reported for the week ending Dec.21, the accompanying 18.6-cent increase by February futures last Friday and a further screen rise of 9.7 cents in very light holiday-limited Nymex trading Monday.

Although Thursday’s cash market will have even stronger prior-day futures support after the February contract tacked on an additional 36.7 cents, there’s a good chance that prices could start descending about as dramatically as they shot higher as early as Thursday. “The cold across the eastern half of the nation will not last beyond Thursday,” according to AccuWeather.com. “The dome of high pressure delivering the frigid air will depart as quickly as it arrived. Over the weekend into early next week, temperatures will warm not only to, but past, typical highs for early January.”

Until then, though, lake-effect snowfalls would continue to accumulate through early Thursday from the Great Lakes region through New England, AccuWeather.com said. “The snow will whiten the ground as far south as the northern mountains of North Carolina,” the forecasting service added.

The Weather Channel reported that “very chilly conditions will prevail over all of the Deep South” by Thursday morning, “with teens to the northern Gulf Coast, and 20s into central Florida.”

Several OFO-like constraints, along with orders to avoid creation of due-pipe imbalances and barring the resolution of due-shipper imbalances until further notice, were added to ones announced prior to the holiday weekend, particularly by eastern pipelines (see Transportation Notes).

While cold weather is also encamped in the West, conditions are certainly less extreme there. For instance, Portland, ME, is expected to experience a low of 13 degrees Thursday, while the Portland, OR, forecast calls for nothing lower than 38.

In a dramatic reversal of currently prevailing conditions, the National Weather Service (NWS) predicts above-normal temperatures during the Jan. 7-11 workweek everywhere east of a line running southward through western Montana and eastern Idaho before curving to the southeast into eastern Utah and the extreme southwest corner of Colorado before turning south again through eastern New Mexico. The greatest deviations above normal will occur in the Northeast and eastern end of the Midwest, NWS said. It looks for below-normal readings only along the West Coast.

Although much of the industry took New Year’s Eve off as a part of the holiday, the gas buyer for a Southern utility said it was helpful for him and his staff to work that day. “It meant we didn’t have to make any long-range [load] forecasts Friday,” he said, and local weather early this week was colder than the company had expected. He bought 30 MMcf/d for intraday use Monday and continuing delivery through Wednesday. The buyer reported having to make several calls to find suppliers who were both in the office and had spot gas available.

Wednesday night would see probably the area’s coldest temperatures of the season so far, he said.

One utility staffer thought the Nymex floor trader who bought $100 crude oil Wednesday to raise the record price bar even higher (see futures story) ought to be fired, since he could have paid about 40 cents less electronically at the time, the buyer continued. Of course, he noted, there’s speculation that maybe some analyst who had earlier predicted that crude would reach $100/bbl at some point may have forced the issue just to claim he was correct.

Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research expects a storage withdrawal of 105 Bcf to be reported for the week ending Dec. 28. In one of the few projections failing to reach triple digits, Stephen Smith of Stephen Smith Energy Associates said he is now expecting a draw of 84 Bcf, which represented an upward revision from his Monday estimate of 78 Bcf.

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