Prices finally found this week’s buildup of heating load — mostly in the East — to be sufficient to realize gains at nearly all points Wednesday. The January futures advance of 1.3 cents Tuesday provided a smidgen of extra support to Wednesday’s cash market.

Losses of about a nickel or a little more at two Midcontinent points, along with a couple of instances of flat numbers, were the exceptions to overall increases ranging from a little less than a nickel to about 60 cents.

Cash prices will have a little more positive guidance from futures Thursday after the January contract rose 10.7 cents (see related story).

Northeast citygates, which had been falling through Tuesday due to unseasonably moderate weather in the region, saw Wednesday’s biggest upticks as sub-freezing lows, likely accompanied by a good bit of frozen precipitation, are due to return to the area Thursday.

Frigid weather has been well established for some time in the Midwest, but it wasn’t until Wednesday that regional citygates acknowledged their fairly copious heating load with flat to moderately higher numbers. Lows in the teens and 20s will continue to dominate the Midwest Thursday.

Freezing lows were already occupying the western half of the South Wednesday, but it was taking them a little longer than expected to spread into the eastern section. Such locations as Atlanta, Birmingham, AL, and Charlotte, NC, can expect to remain above the freezing level for at least another day, and Florida will continue to experience highs in the 70s and low 80s.

For now only the mountain areas of the West are very cold, and even then the weather isn’t all that severe except in the more northerly ranges. The Denver forecast calls for a Wednesday low in the low 20s, but the high should be around 50. High temperatures will be near to above average for much of the West, The Weather Channel said.

A couple of supply shortfall issues were surfacing in the West, however. Las Vegas-based LDC Southwest Gas issued a “hold to burn notice” due to low linepack (see Transportation Notes). And El Paso said it had set the probability of declaring a Strained Operating Condition or Critical Operating Condition to moderate because of low linepack.

A Gulf Coast producer discounted the tiny bit of prior-day futures support for cash prices, saying he considered Wednesday cash gains as purely weather-driven. He expects more firmness Thursday as colder weather continues to spread toward the East Coast. But prices should begin softening again Friday, he said, as forecasts will be turning milder and the weekend decline of industrial load will come into play. He was unaware of any significant transportation constraints, saying even Transco’s Imbalance OFO didn’t seem to be much of a problem.

A utility buyer in the South agreed with the producer’s price forecast. Throughput is strong currently with freezing temperatures in the area, and that’s good for the utility’s business, he said. However, it will start to warm up by the weekend, he said. The company has been making “good solid pulls” from storage in the last few days, but expects to give its storage accounts a rest pretty soon. “January is our coldest month of the year,” the buyer added, but it’s rare for the area to get much below freezing.

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