All points were finally on the same page again Friday, and that page said “down.” Prices fell across the board, succumbing to weak weather-based demand, a bearish storage report that resulted in a 28.2-cent dive by June futures Thursday, and the usual weekend decline of industrial load.

Declines ranged from a little less than a dime to a little more than 85 cents and tended to be largest in the West. Only one point, Florida Gas Zone 3, failed to realize a double-digit downturn, and that was likely because Florida Gas Transmission warned of the potential for an upcoming Overage Alert Day for the third straight day Friday.

The universal nature of Friday’s softness ended an extensive period in which anywhere from one or two points to nearly half of them would trade contrary to overall price movement.

One source considered it iffy whether the 21.6-cent rebound by June futures Friday would be enough to rally the cash market Monday, noting that weather-based demand would still be fairly light in many areas.

The Midwest market was soft despite a cold front moving through the region Saturday. However, it was unlikely to leave temperatures any colder than the 40s except near the Canadian border. And the near-blizzard conditions that plagued the northern Plains Friday would be ending, The Weather Channel said.

The Northeast could expect to see that Midwest cold front arriving near the end of the weekend, but in early May the front obviously would not be dropping temperatures enough to create any gas price-boosting load.

Another cold front was due to be moving from west to east through the South, but its main effect would be to stifle air conditioning load that had been rebuilding since a cool start to the week in much of the region.

A midday glance at the temperature map at Weather.com shows that the only blue (cold) area remaining is confined to the Rockies and the eastern end of the Pacific Northwest, which meant that significant heating load is occurring only where relatively few people live. Moderate to warm conditions were in the forecast for the rest of the West.

High-linepack OFOs by both of California’s biggest distributors (see Transportation Notes) put added negative pressure on western prices.

It’s a little cooler than usual in the Southwest, said a regional utility buyer, so his company has relatively little gas load yet. It should be getting hot enough by late May that it will be needing quite a bit more, he said. For now temperatures are still a bit chilly in the mornings, and they need to rise a lot for the utility to have any substantive demand for gas, he added.

Friday’s big San Juan Basin price drops (on either side of 70 cents) induced the utility to buy a little spot gas even though power demand is light, the buyer said.

A utility buyer in the South said his company may get a little behind again on its storage injection schedule because early May is looking unseasonably cool, but shouldn’t have any trouble making it up when mild weather returns. Local temperatures were due to move lower during the weekend, but not low enough to spur enough heating load to matter, he added.

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