Prices began what may be an extended period of softening Thursday, dropping at all points between slightly under a nickel to about 35 cents. A large majority of the declines were in double digits.

Cash numbers were primarily depressed by the previous day’s 20.7-cent drop in natural gas futures, along with massive cratering in Nymex’s oil products complex that day. And although temperatures continue to range from chilly to very cold in many sections of the West, Midwest and Northeast, the South is shedding heating load as it starts to warm up after a cold spell earlier in the week.

Naturally everyone was especially focused on the latest release of storage data Thursday morning by the Energy Information Administration. As had been widely speculated since the previous report that sparked a dollar-plus jump in December futures shortly before the contract went to settlement, the agency changed that report’s withdrawal for the week ended Nov. 19 from the highly suspect original 49 Bcf to 17 Bcf. The 32 Bcf revision reflected “a resubmission of data from one or more respondents,” EIA said (see related stories).

Almost lost in the hubbub over the change for last week was the new estimate of a 5 Bcf pull for the week ended Nov. 26, which included the two-day Thanksgiving holiday. The Producing region actually had returned to injection mode by stashing 2 Bcf away, EIA said. The new withdrawal figure was in line with prior expectations of a small pull.

Who would have guessed it? Nymex traders reacted quite bearishly to the revision and the latest report, sending the natural gas screen slightly more than 60 cents lower. They combined that with further huge erosion in oil-related futures, with crude oil for January delivery touching a low of $42.50/bbl before finally settling down more than $2 at $43.25.

A Northeast marketer probably summed up the market attitude toward the revision with a whopper of understatement: “Nobody’s very happy about it.” She was particularly upset that “to do what they [EIA] did on [December futures] settlement day, and then wait a week to correct it. The timing was terrible.” On Thursday’s swing trading, she commented that the weather is still relatively moderate in her region and no cold of any substance is in the forecast through next week.

The marketer had no doubt that cash quotes will keep softening Friday, citing the weekend effect, Thursday’s big declines in all energy futures products, and a continuing lack of significant heating load.

The West, where most of North America’s most severe cold remains in residence, nevertheless recorded many of Thursday’s biggest losses. This occurred despite California experiencing date-specific record overnight lows for the third day in a row, Westcoast cautioning shippers about low linepack (see Transportation Notes) and Kern River continuing to report low linepack systemwide.

A Midwest source had this emphatic response to the storage revision announcement: “What a bunch of [several expletives deleted]! there. I feel better now that I got that off my chest. I just hope our customers decide to pay us, which is a serious concern we have. Today’s [futures] close should be the actual December contract number. Any suggestions? Is there anyone who cares or can do anything about this injustice?”

Peter R. Huntsman, president and CEO of the Huntsman Companies, was highly critical of Nymex for not having “meaningful trading limits in place” to prevent speculators from causing such events as the Nov. 24 blowout in gas futures. “The price spike occurred at the very time most industrial gas consumers were locking in their prices for the coming month, once again costing consumers hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said (see related story).

Kyle Cooper of Citigroup weigh in with this analysis: “Prices were again very weak as the EIA did indeed revise last week’s report. We do not believe it [original error] was malicious. It was probably just an input error, possibly by someone filling in over the Thanksgiving holidays. That is little consolation to those who were short last week. Or to those who believed it [Nov. 24 report] and were long this week.

One NGI source responded in a similar vein, saying, “Unfortunately the damage has already been done and can’t be undone.”

After reporting only a tiny reduction in Hurricane Ivan-related Gulf of Mexico outages in the last three weeks, Minerals Management Service said shut-ins had fallen to 635.77 MMcf/d Thursday, 12.7 MMcf/d less that what it reported Monday. The cumulative total of deferred offshore production since Sept. 11 now stands at 131.732 Bcf, or 2.96% of the Gulf’s normal yearly output, MMS said.

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