Despite a flat futures market Wednesday and a somewhat bearish winter weather forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see related story), cash prices were generally up 10-60 cents, aside from a few flat locations in the Northeast and Gulf Coast and a massive decline at Northwest South of Green River.

Gas prices on Northwest tumbled about $1.75 to the $8.60s because of the cut out and pipe replacement work near the Sand Springs receipt point. Gas also was backed up in Wyoming because of the shut down of Clay Basin storage (Daggett, UT) for reservoir testing and the maintenance that is taking place at the Opal processing plant, Jonah Gathering system and Elberta Compressor station.

To put that Northwest price situation in perspective, consider that deals in New York City on Transco Zone 6 were $6 higher on Wednesday in the $14.60s. Gas prices throughout the Rockies fared a little better, generally ranging from $11.10s to $11.40s, which was up 30-50 cents for the day. But they were still at about a $3.20 discount to gas in New York City. Despite some tightening in Rockies forward basis there’s still a real good case for building another pipeline east from Wyoming and Colorado to Northeast-bound pipelines, such as Tennessee, Transco and Texas Eastern.

Scheduled gas flows into the 51 Bcf Clay Basin storage field dropped to zero Wednesday from about 117,000 Dth/d on Tuesday and 152,000 Dth/d on average this month, according to data from Golden, CO-based Bentek Energy. That helped back up a lot gas in the pipeline system.

Bentek also reported that California utilities were taking less Rockies gas on Wednesday and were injecting less gas into storage. Temperatures are mild in much of California and demand is weak. Kern River gas flows fell from about 1 Bcf/d on average this month to 675 MMcf/d on Wednesday, Bentek said. SoCalGas was taking about 300,000 Dth/d less Wednesday than on Tuesday.

The southwestern utilities, meanwhile, were buying more to fuel power generation in response to an outage at Palo Verde’s Units 2 (1,335 MW) and 3 (1,247 MW). The units were taken offline Wednesday due to safety concerns. Palo Verde Unit 1 (1,243 MW) already was shut down.

Permian and San Juan Basin prices rose sharply Wednesday. Permian was up about 65 cents to the high $11.40s, while San Juan prices were up more than 55 cents to the $11.20s.

Prices also were up quite a bit in the Midcontinent region despite the mild weather there and weak demand. “We don’t have any demand around here so I don’t know why it’s been going up the last several days,” said a Midcontinent utility buyer. “Northern Demarc was $11.00 a few days ago, but now it’s in the $11.80s. We’re not buying anything. We actually sold a little bit. We’ll be right where we need to be in storage at the end of the month. I guess people are buying this gas and selling the futures contract forward, I suppose, if they can find a home for it in storage.”

The impact of gas production shut-ins in the Gulf also continues to fuel winter supply fears. The Minerals Management Service (MMS) said Wednesday that 5,919.36 MMcf/d of gas was still shut in, which was down about 123 MMcf/d from the 6,042 MMcf/d shut in on Tuesday. MMS said. Cumulative gas shut-ins stand at 277.527 Bcf. Nearly 70% of the Gulf’s oil production, or 1.046 million bbl/d, also remains shut in. MMS said 256 platforms and the rigs are still evacuated, excluding the 111 platforms and eight rigs that were destroyed.

Bentek Energy reported total onshore and offshore Louisiana Gulf gas production shut-ins of 5,806 MMcf/d, but the consulting firm said onshore and offshore Texas production now is 140 MMcf/d above pre-Katrina levels. Bentek sees little change on Tennessee where 1,759 MMcf/d remains shut in. There also still is 858 MMcf/d shut in upstream of Southern Natural and 545 MMcf/d shut in upstream of Transco.

The Department of Energy said Wednesday that 15 gas processing plants with 9.5 Bcf/d of capacity and pre-hurricane throughput of 5.33 Bcf/d remain shut down.

Despite the continuing problems in the Gulf, New England traders reported a “very quiet day with pretty flat demand. Temperatures are five to 10 degrees below seasonal with rain further dampening things. Prices have been relatively listless in the 10-15 cent range.” Algonquin Citygates actually appeared to slip a couple cents in the $14.20s, while Dracut was up about a nickel and Tennessee Zone 6 rose about 15 cents to the mid $14.30s.

“There’s simply not much going on,” the New England trader said. “This is a light-demand time of year. Temperatures even in Canada are quite warm. The problems that are still being tended to down in the Gulf are providing price support but that’s it. Prices probably will head down from here. I think all that supply offline is keeping the market strong but it will go away eventually. The weekend has a pretty good opportunity to take it square on the chin.”

Forecast for the weekly storage report are generally in the 50s Bcf with low predictions in the 40s and highs in the low 60s. Kyle Cooper of Citibank said he’s expecting something in the 56-66 Bcf range, compared to 67 Bcf during the same week last year and a five-year average of 64 Bcf. Global Insight’s Jim Osten said he’s expecting a 60 Bcf injection.

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