Price movement was mixed Monday, but higher quotes clearly outnumbered losses. Heating load was relatively light outside much of the West, leading one source to conclude that cash gains were largely driven by the previous Friday’s 13.2-cent advance by March futures along with an assist from the post-weekend return of industrial demand and modest continuing screen strength Monday morning.

Most trading points were flat to up a little more than 35 cents, with western locations seeing most of the largest gains. Most of the largest losses ranging from 2-3 cents to about 45 cents were in the Midcontinent and at Midwest and Northeast citygates.

Tuesday’s cash market can count on further — but meager — prior-trading-day screen support after the prompt-month contract rose another 3.3 cents (see related story).

Most residents of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. can look forward to fairly moderate temperatures this week, according to the National Weather Service’s forecast for the Feb. 9-13 workweek (see Daily GPI, Feb. 5). Tuesday highs in the South and Midcontinent are expected to range from the mid 60s to the upper 70s.

It will be chillier than that in the Midwest, Northeast and Eastern Canada, where a freezing low is predicted for Toronto. However, the northern U.S. market areas will be no colder than seasonal norms, The Weather Channel said, and even though a storm will bring some snow to parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas, most of the Midwest will be “far above normal.” TWC expects the Northeast to be “near to above mid-February expectations.”

Geographic weather trends have swapped places. While below-normal temperatures have dominated in the East for the last few weeks while the West has mostly been above normal, it’s now the West where most of the coldest weather resides. Lows in the low 20s are due Tuesday in the Rockies, while the Pacific Northwest is due to bottom out just below freezing. Even Phoenix, normally one of the nation’s warmest locations, can expect to get below 40, according to Weather Central.

Cold weather may have driven western price advances, a Texas-based marketer said, but it must have been mainly futures strength that caused gains in the Gulf Coast and a few other eastern points. He noted that Chicago is expected to see a high around 60 Tuesday, while Boston will peak in the low 40s. That may sound cold to some folks in the South, the marketer said, but it’s fairly moderate for that city at this time of year. He said he expects the Northeast to keep trading approximately at Gulf Coast prices plus variable costs of transportation.

Noting that the Carthage Hub in East Texas recorded Monday’s biggest loss, he attributed it to a one-day outage scheduled for Tuesday by Duke Energy’s processing plant at the hub.

A utility buyer in the South said the region is experiencing what he called a “false breakout of spring,” adding that it’s too early in February to expect such mild conditions to last. However, his own area can expect moderate weather at least until the end of the week, he said.

The buyer said the change from cold weather last week meant his utility had to cut back its scheduled storage withdrawals to zero at least through Tuesday. “We even had to put back a little back in,” he said.

The number of drilling rigs engaged in the search for natural gas in the U.S. plunged again in the week ending Feb. 6, according to the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/). Two rigs were added in the Gulf of Mexico, Baker Hughes said, but 48 were deactivated onshore for a total loss of 46 to 1,104. Its latest tally was down 11% from a month earlier and 22% less than the year-ago level.

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