The market was back at it Friday, acting contrary to logical thinking in some traders’ minds. Eastern points were mostly flat overall, but ranging from mildly softer to more than a nickel higher at a few Northeast citygates despite weather in most areas that didn’t appear to justify relative firmness. Meanwhile, an honest to goodness winter storm was moving eastward into the Rockies, yet numbers were down by a nickel or more at most western points.

“I don’t get it,” confessed a Northeast marketer. “There’s no blizzard sneaking in under traders’ radar for the weekend, so once again it’s hard to figure the Northeast’s price strength,” especially since industrial demand typically slumps over a weekend.

A couple of sources said they had to assume that gains across the energy futures complex provided much of the support for cash prices. The gas screen’s gain of 9 cents, while swing gas at Henry Hub was flat in the low $2.40s, pushed their spread to more than 40 cents. The January crude oil contract at Nymex gained more than a dollar after a Russian leader announced his country’s intention to help raise global oil prices. In addition, one analyst cited refining constraints, and said there were fears of new terrorism with the Muslim holiday period of Ramadan ending over the weekend. Heating oil numbers also rose sharply.

It was a “strange market” to a Gulf Coast producer. “There was a lot more strength than I would have expected.” As trading started, cash looked like it would be coming off, but then it quickly hit a bottom and began rebounding before balancing off, he said. He noted increasing demand from Florida and on the Transco system, “and Sonat was picking up toward the end.”

The producer continued: “We are all scratching our heads over here. Storage is still at an all-time high. There’s almost no weather anywhere in the country. The cold weather they are predicting is still weeks away, so with all things, cash in the Gulf Coast should be below $2. I think non-physical traders are pushing the market around. The ‘paper guys’ are talking up the game.”

Normally Columbia Gas (TCO) is priced slightly under Appalachian neighbor Dominion, but TCO began opening a spread above Dominion last week that grew as large as about 12 cents Friday. An aggregator explained the premium as due to tighter supplies on TCO resulting from the pipeline’s shutting off some interconnects with upstream pipes temporarily. In addition, the TCO bulletin board said Line 1711 has been experiencing high line pressures lately due to lack of markets, “which has resulted in a rotating shut-in of interruptible production.”

Near-blizzard conditions over northern Nevada and cold and/or snowy forecasts for much of the rest of the West failed to avert general price softness in the region. The end of a low-linepack OFO by El Paso (see Transportation Notes) likely had some negative impact on prices, a marketer said, but he was puzzled by border-SoCalGas being one of the rare flat western points.

It wasn’t announced until late afternoon, much too late to have affected cash trading, but Transwestern said Unit 202 at its Station 2 will be down for 36 hours beginning today for gear box repair. The unplanned maintenance will reduce station capacity by 70,000 MMBtu/d.

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