With the Rockies, Upper Plains, Northeast and much of Canada still enduring freezing lows and some sections of the South along most of the Midwest due to rejoin them by early this week, only a tiny loss at the Florida citygate averted an across-the-board run of rising prices Friday. Thursday’s futures increase of 11.9 cents provided further backing for the spot market.

A large majority of gains, which ranged from about a nickel to a quarter or so, were in double digits. Texas Eastern M-1 joined several Northeast points in failing to climb as much as a dime.

Prompt-month futures will continue to provide strong prior-trading-day support for Monday’s cash market after the February contract tacked on another 20.4 cents Friday (see related story).

A day earlier the National Weather Service called for below-normal temperatures in peninsular Florida and from the central Midwest through the eastern Upper Plains during the Jan. 26-30 period. But a Thursday afternoon update showed normal readings throughout Florida for Wednesday through the weekend with the below-normal conditions having expanded from the north-central U.S. through the Midcontinent into much of the Southwest from central Texas through southeast Arizona and also occupying the rest of the Midwest into much of the Mid-Atlantic and the lower Northeast. Above-normal expectations remained confined to the West Coast as far south as central California.

Meanwhile, highs were still pretty mild in the low to mid 70s Friday afternoon for much of Texas and Florida and parts of Louisiana as evidenced by The Weather Channel’s (TWC) current temperature chart. But that would be changing over the weekend, TWC said, as a strong cold front was expected to sweep from the southern high Plains early Saturday to the Southeast coast by early Monday.

The Northeast tended to see the smallest gains despite lows remaining in the 20s at most locations and even single digits at some northern locations in New England. But snow showers will accompany the return of colder air across the interior Northeast late Monday and Tuesday, according to TWC.

Much of the worst of the a recent storm will be leaving the West Saturday, heading eastward toward the Midcontinent/Midwest. However, a new Pacific storm is due to approach the West Coast Sunday, bringing a return of rain and mountain snow to virtually all of the Far West.

Even Minneapolis was joining nearly all of the rest of the Midwest with predictions of bottom-end temperatures above freezing Saturday. But the storm from out of the West will be reaching much of the region by Monday, covering most sections with snow showers.

Northern Natural Gas indicated how Upper Midwest temperatures would be relatively moderate going into the weekend but plunging by the start of this week. Its normal system-weighted temperature at this time of year is 15 degrees, a bulletin board posting said, but it projected averages of 28 Friday, 31 Saturday, 25 Sunday and 16 Monday.

Tennessee’s bulletin board reported no nominations for Friday at either its receipt or delivery interconnects with Petal Gas Storage in Mississippi, leaving all of the facility’s 512,500 Dth/d of capacity available.

Rockies Express now says it expects to able to provide initially limited (88%) service around early to the middle of the coming week at the eastern end of its system where a force majeure was declared Nov. 14 (see Transportation Notes) that shut in service to five delivery points. A dubious source commented, “Groundhog Day [Feb. 2] sounds about right for them.”

A Midcontinent producer expressed surprise about the weekend price strength, saying “It’s not going to get all that cold.” He said the price trend was going up for most of Friday’s trading session, which often indicates the direction of quotes on the following trading day. However, quotes were trailing off near the end, he said, which may cloud the presumption of further firmness.

A SunTrust Robinson Humphrey/the Gerdes Group analyst said in an advisory Friday that with the recent cold snap having dissipated, the storage withdrawal reported this week “will be much less impressive (we preliminarily forecast a 100 Bcf withdrawal) and should again widen the overhang compared to year-ago levels. That said, our models suggests storage should remain within 10% of year-ago levels through the end of the heating season (assuming normal weather) and should flip into a [year-on-year] deficit by late spring.

Addison A. Armstrong of Tradition Energy noted that this winter’s 1.23 Tcf (32%) pull from storage “has now eliminated nearly all [of] last year’s storage surplus with 10 weeks still left in the current withdrawal season.”

The latest increase of the number of drilling rigs actively seeking gas in the U.S. wasn’t as big as the previous week’s 30, but still hefty nonetheless. The Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count said 22 rigs joined the search during the week ending Jan. 22, bringing the latest total to 833. One rig was added in the Gulf of Mexico while the onshore tally rose by 21, Baker Hughes said. Its latest count is 11% higher than a month ago but 30% down from year-earlier level.

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