The 40 cents-plus screen spike of the day before was the most frequently cited factor in Tuesday’s muscle-flexing cash market, but rising temperatures in the South, storage injection demand and the end of a Rockies transportation constraint also drew mention. Double-digit gains ruled the day at most points, accompanied by triple-digit rebounds for CIG, Cheyenne Hub, Questar and San Juan-Bondad. Significant nuclear outages, while little changed from before, also helped bolster gas prices.

Other than continuing snow in Calgary and a bit of lingering chill in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest, cold weather was only a memory in most areas. But air conditioning load is still building in the South. According to The Weather Channel, most of the region “should be quite warm in the 80s [Wednesday] and — in Texas and parts of Florida — the 90s.” After a false alarm last week, Florida Gas Transmission followed through on an advisory about a potential Overage Alert Day notice by actually declaring one Tuesday (see Transportation Notes). Florida citygates rose more than 40 cents into the high $6.00s in response, approximating the levels of Northeast citygates.

Northeast prices were ” up to their old tricks,” said one trader, starting stronger but then fading. Dracut began the morning around $6.00 but trickled down 3-4 cents at a time to the $5.80 level in late deals, he said. Most regional citygates managed to average above $6. Temperatures will stay cool for a couple of more days, he added, “but I think we may be able to turn off the furnaces for good until next winter by the end of the week.”

A Gulf Coast marketer attributed cash firmness mostly due to Monday’s screen spike rather than fundamentals. Because of the pullback of about 12 cents in gas futures Tuesday, along with sizeable declines in the crude oil and heating oil futures contracts, he looks for flat cash numbers Wednesday. Other sources said it was “too close to call” on Wednesday’s price direction.

CIG and Cheyenne Hub were pulling back in a big way from the abyss of sub-$2 pricing, gaining nearly $3 each to average solidly above $4 again, a marketer said. The WIC-Trailblazer outage that had blocked access to Midcontinent/Midwest markets for a major amount of Rockies gas was for Tuesday only. In contrast to a downward trend in Northeast numbers, Rockies prices tended to rise as the morning went on, the marketer said.

A Midwest utility buyer said he had no deals to report because the weather was too mild for either cooling or heating.

A producer called the Chicago market “pretty quiet,” but said there was still a good amount of storage injection demand “for those who aren’t terribly price-sensitive.” He is looking for EIA to report a “very bearish” 80-100 Bcf injection Thursday.

“It’s still snowing today,” said a Calgary trader, adding that such a weather event is “not all that unusual” this late into the spring. In fact, “some of the best skiing of the year is available right now” in Alberta, he said.

In a commentary on the recent severe weather that has resulted in deadly tornadoes from the nation’s midsection through the Southeast, consulting firm Weather 2000 called it “the regular springtime clash between cool, dry air from the North and warm, moist air from the South that has spawned these storms. While the last few seasons have produced fewer than normal tornadoes, this 2003 has been catching up in a hurry. One only needs to look at the month-to-date temperature departures to get a sense of how strong the gradient has been; for example, while Chicago has averaged four degrees below normal so far this month, Houston has averaged seven degrees above…

“While we do expect the West to warm from well-below normal temperatures to near-normal (as previously advised), the Pacific Northwest will still hang on to some troughiness in the over the next two weeks. Meanwhile, the pesky closed low in the Northeast…will make its presence known in the week 2 period, bringing cooler than normal temps (and continued heating demand) to New England and portions of the northern Mid-Atlantic.”

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