Prices managed to sustain this week’s near-solid upward price movement Thursday, but there were hints that the bullish streak may be coming to an end. New upticks ranged from about a nickel to a quarter, but were mostly moderate at around a dime or less.

The Energy Information Administration fell short of many previous expectations in reporting 72 Bcf in storage injections last week, but it countered that semi-bullish news with an upward revision of 7 Bcf in the previous report’s tally, changing the implied inventory for the week ending May 2 from 821 Bcf to 828 Bcf. Nymex traders must have focused more on the revision, which had been rumored prior to the Thursday morning issuance of EIA’s report, since June gas futures plunged 18.3 cents for the day. The crude oil and heating oil contracts also gave up recent gains, with crude settling below $29/bbl Thursday.

“We saw [cash] prices jump up at first, but then they slid in the few remaining late deals” after EIA’s report, said a Midwest utility buyer. She and others expect the negative storage data impact to be reflected in falling prices Friday. There will be the effect of lighter weekend load (including the three-day weekend for Canadians commemorating Victoria Day Monday) along with Thursday’s weak energy futures and continuing light weather-related demand, the buyer said. The Midwest is in “a comfortable temperature area” for the time being, she added, but her company is “still going strong” on injecting storage.

A Northeast utility buyer also reported continuing storage refill efforts in the midst of a “pretty quiet” market. “I keep wondering why prices are remaining as strong as they are” during the generally moderate weather of a shoulder month, he continued. “We’re in a minimum-flow period right now, and it’s a good time for vacations.” The buyer also commented that any so-called bullish news, such as reports of a fire knocking out the ExxonMobil processing plant at Katy this week, “tends to cause minor panics and higher prices.”

A western trader said he was trying to figure what to do when Transwestern switches its San Juan Lateral maintenance constraint from the Ignacio-Blanco segment in the northern part of the basin over weekend to the Blanco-Thoreau segment. “That will probably make El Paso long next week,” he said. He noted that the Northwest domestic-Sumas spread has slipped to 15 cents or less this week after having been multiple dollars apart earlier this year, likely a result of Kern River’s expansion start-up May 1. The current limit on Northwest’s 26-inch line in Washington state, where it’s still confined to 80% of Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure due to a rupture early in May (see Daily GPI, May 6), “isn’t causing me any problems now on gas shipped from Sumas to Stanfield, but I can foresee trouble as summer volumes rise.” He expect Sumas to regain more of its former large premium as a result.

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