Buoyed by run-ups throughout the energy futures complex the day before and the stubborn refusal of wintry weather to exit the market stage in some areas, cash prices recorded across-the-board gains in Friday’s trading for weekend flows.

Upticks were measured from only 3-4 cents at some Northeast citygates and in California to as much as a quarter in the Midcontinent/Midwest; most were in the teens.

The weather outlook going into the weekend was a good deal more bullish than what the National Weather Service had predicted for late last week (see Daily GPI, March 8). A cold front was taking longer than expected to move eastward out of the Midwest, but it promised to extend already-chilly temperatures in the Northeast through the weekend. The South was in no danger of freezing, but it also would be experiencing a weekend cold front. Only parts of the Southwest and Florida could look forward to truly warm thermometer levels.

If “following the screen” continues to set the pattern for cash numbers, look for retrenchment Monday. Natural gas futures only fell a little less than a nickel Friday, but losses were considerably greater in the rest of Nymex’s energy trading pits. Crude oil for April came under selling pressure after the Senate amended a budget bill to suspend filling the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve and instead sell supplies already targeted for the reserve into the general market. April crude sank as low $35.30/bbl before recovering to finish the day at $36.19.

A Canadian producer couldn’t see much other than Thursday’s run-up in energy futures that pushed cash gas higher Friday, although he acknowledged that a few pockets of lingering cold weather might have helped. Noting that it was getting colder again around Calgary, he said, “I saw some discretionary storage withdrawals today [Friday] that I hadn’t been seeing earlier [last] week.”

A high-linepack OFO by SoCalGas (see Transportation Notes) limited the Golden State market to some of the smallest weekend price gains. The OFO made the Southern California border a tough sale, a marketer noted. On Thursday Waha and El Paso-Permian numbers had averaged 12 to 19 cents back of the border, but on Friday the spreads narrowed to 5-10 cents (and even parity in some cases), she said. That wouldn’t cover variable transportation costs, so little if any Permian/Waha gas got sold into California, instead trying for more lucrative markets in Texas and the Midcontinent/Midwest, she said.

A cold front in the Midwest was “worse than ever” Friday and not moving eastward as fast as expected, a marketer in the region said. Her city was getting snow flurries, “but they’re not sticking to the ground. We should have better weather next week.” The marketer wondered if recent major reductions in estimated proven reserves by Shell and El Paso may have helped keep gas prices high “because they [revisions] make people think that supplies are less plentiful than previously believed.” It certainly wasn’t Thursday’s report of a miserly 28 Bcf storage withdrawal that pushed prices higher Friday, she stated adamantly.

Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper said his initial estimation for this week’s storage report looks for a withdrawal “probably” in the 40s Bcf, “maybe slightly higher.”

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