Because trading was for Monday-only deliveries, when most of the U.S. and Canada could anticipate a return of colder weather after some moderation during the holiday weekend, prices were up at most points Wednesday. The timing also allowed the cash market to ignore a 44.1-cent plunge by January futures a day earlier.

Gains ranged from 2-3 cents to about 65 cents and were strongest in the Midcontinent and non-Rockies West. The Gulf Coast was clearly the weakest market as nearly all points there recorded declines, which overall were a little less than a nickel to a little more than 35 cents.

The Energy Information Administration’s report of a 66 Bcf storage injection for the week ending Nov. 21 greatly exceeded consensus expectations in the low to mid 40s Bcf. Nymex traders obviously took the news as bullish; in limited pre-holiday trading they drove January futures 49.2 cents higher.

Other than a System Protection Warning by MRT and a new outage at WIC’s Douglas Compressor Station (see Transportation Notes), there apparently were no significant transportation constraints going into the holiday weekend.

Most areas were expected to be warming a bit or maintaining their weather status quo during the Thanksgiving Day weekend. But as this week begins, below-normal temperatures are forecast from the East Coast to as far west as the Upper Plains, most of the Rockies and part of the desert Southwest.

A Midwest marketer said it was almost certainly the trading for a colder Monday instead of the more moderate weekend that allowed most of the cash market to advance, ignoring the major screen weakness of Tuesday. His own area would be getting a little warmer over the next few days, he said, but would join the overall cooldown coming up. He noted that the Michigan citygates were down about 15 cents each, but Chicago was able to record a gain of about a nickel.

The marketer said he saw only a couple of done deals for December baseload on his IntercontinentalExchange screen Wednesday, which were likely cases of tying up loose bidweek ends. But he said there also a few offers and bids still out there.

The National Weather Service’s six- to 10-day forecast for the Dec. 2-6 period calls for below-normal temperatures almost everywhere east of a line running southwestward from northwest North Dakota to the southwest corner of Wyoming before curving to the south through central Utah and Arizona. The northern half of Maine, where normal conditions are expected to prevail, was the exception. The only area where the agency predicts above-normal readings was on either side of the California/Nevada border from where the Nevada border bends toward the southeast to the Las Vegas area.

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