With falling temperature trends in key northern market areas being just a preview of colder weather to come, quotes rose at most points Tuesday. The roller-coaster ride in the Rockies continued as the regional market made its third gigantic reversal of price direction in as many trading days, seeing triple-digit increases at all points except Cheyenne Hub.

A little support from Monday’s uptick of 6.4 cents by December futures contributed to overall gains Tuesday ranging from a couple of pennies to $2.90 or so. Several points in the Midcontinent and Gulf Coast that were flat to down a little more than a dime kept mixed price movement in play.

For now the South is still pretty comfortable with highs in the 70s, but it will get a taste of chill from a cold front moving in over the next two days. Much the same pattern is predicted for the Northeast, although that region already is colder than the South with highs in the 50s due Wednesday. Some lake-effect snows can be expected in parts of Michigan and Wisconsin Wednesday afternoon as the Midwest continues a retreat from its recent flirtation with mid-autumn warmth, The Weather Channel said.

Outside the Rockies, most of the West will range from cool to warm.

The screen will have essentially neutral guidance for Wednesday’s cash market after ending three days of advances with a minuscule 1.2-cent loss Tuesday.

The Rockies market benefited from two developments: Northwest’s pig run constraint between the Rangely and Cisco compressor stations was for Tuesday only, and after a Tuesday warm-up Rockies high temperatures will be plunging again. Denver’s high around 68 Tuesday was expected to be replaced by one of 50 Wednesday, although both days would have lows around freezing.

Despite a PG&E high-inventory OFO with a stricter-than-normal 3% imbalance tolerance and $5 penalties (see Transportation Notes), the PG&E citygate and Malin rose about a quarter and 20 cents, respectively. Solid western price strength also was oblivious to Kern River continuing to report high linepack systemwide Tuesday.

NGPL was cutting deliveries into Midwestern Tuesday, reported a Houston-based marketer. It was not related to NGPL’s Gulf Coast Mainline #3 leak (see Transportation Notes), he said, but just a case of too much gas being nominated at the Midwestern interconnect. Since weather in northern market areas will keep getting a little colder into the weekend, general price firmness is likely to continue, he said.

A utility buyer in the South said his area is cooling off a bit but as of Tuesday it was still in T-shirt weather. Also, the local 10-day forecast indicates that an approaching cold snap is unlikely to last more than two to three days before warmer conditions return, he said.

Cold weather at the end of October allowed his company to pull back from putting too much into storage, the buyer said. “We like to keep a little window [of storage injection capacity] open,” although the utility will be injecting Wednesday and Thursday, he added. He isn’t buying any swing gas currently and hopes that his company can avoid going into the spot market all winter. “Our motto is TSF — ‘Think Storage First,'” he said.

Only normal conditions in the western three-fourths of Washington state and the northwest corner of Oregon are left out of a National Weather Service (NWS) forecast of above-normal temperatures in the Nov. 19-23 period west of a line running southwestward from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula through central Wisconsin and Iowa before curving south roughly along the western edge of Missouri and eastern borders of Oklahoma and Texas. NWS also looks for above-normal readings in Maine and the northern ends of New Hampshire and Vermont. It predicted below-normal temperatures in all of the Southeast east of the Mississippi River, and also in the Mid-Atlantic, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the southeastern corner of the Midwest.

Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research expects the first pull — 11 Bcf — of the nascent storage withdrawal season to be reported for the week ending Nov. 9. Without specifying a volume, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey/the Gerdes Group commented, “Regarding gas storage, we preliminarily expect the EIA to report a modest withdrawal on Thursday followed by a modest injection in the subsequent week due to moderating temperatures nationwide.” Citigroup’s Tim Evans foresees a similar pattern, calling for a 10 Bcf withdrawal, a 5 Bcf injection and a 25 Bcf draw in the weeks ending Nov. 9, Nov. 16 and Nov. 23, respectively.

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