With at least a couple of traders starting to express boredom over a stagnant market, moderate softness remained in command at most points Tuesday. Just as they have almost every day so far in the new year, some prices swam against the general tide: several instances of flat to up to more than a quarter higher numbers were seen in the Gulf Coast, Midcontinent/Midwest and West.

In addition to the usual weak-market suspects of little heating load and prior-day screen softness, expectations of a small storage pull in Thursday’s report — or even a chance of another small build — contributed to the recent downward pressure on cash prices. Tuesday’s losses ranged from slightly under a nickel to nearly 40 cents.

Although patches of snow and/or freezing rain are likely Wednesday in the Midwest, Northeast and mountain West, The Weather Channel — aptly calling it “a recurring theme” — said temperatures in most areas will continue to range from seasonal to well above seasonal. This will especially be true in the South, where thermometer readings will be “significantly above average,” it said.

“We’re searching for opportunities” while trading is pretty slow right now, said a Midcontinent/Midwest marketer. The mornings aren’t very exciting these days, he said, and “it’s like a scavenger hunt to find a home for your gas each day.” He was surprised that natural gas futures didn’t slip a lot further than 2.4 cents Tuesday, saying, “We’ve fallen a lot without much retracement.” The marketer said he would have expected the screen to settle well below $9.25.

He said it’s relatively warm for mid-January in the Midwest, but reported seeing “some frost on cars this morning.” However, he hasn’t seen any forecasts indicating a chance for a gas price rally before the end of January.

“The Nicor caps are killing me,” he continued, referring to allocations that the LDC has been applying to pipeline interconnects in the Chicago citygate are for some time. “If you’ve got primary firm capacity, you’re fine,” he said, but anybody who sold delivered gas at NGPL-Nicor at less than primary firm priority this month is an unhappy camper. That’s Nicor’s biggest pipeline source of supply but also the one seeing the biggest allocations, he added. Things are OK if a customer doesn’t exceed its Primary Firm limits, but it requires some maneuvering if the customer needs to deliver more supplies than that, he said.

A Gulf Coast producer said prices were down 25-30 cents for a while during early trading, but rising downstream demand brought them back up late somewhat strongly.

A Calgary-based source said it was “a sloppy market” that has been producing slow morning activity recently, “but as a producer, there’s always something else to do.” He noted that the Westcoast Station 2 deficit to NIT (NOVA Inventory Transfer) was getting bigger, rising to more than 55 cents Tuesday. That means everything possible is going east from Western Canada, and there’s not as much demand to the south, he said. The producer said that under Westcoast’s new tolls, “I’m just barely covering my T-2 South” transport costs.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has some cold in its forecast for the Jan. 16-20 period, but once again the outlook is pretty bearish for gas prices. The agency expects above normal temperatures everywhere east of the Rockies, with the greatest variations from normal due in the key market areas of the Midwest and Northeast. The only states where NWS looks for below normal readings are California, Arizona, Nevada and parts of Oregon and Utah.

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