There appeared to be just enough cold weather to keep the bears at bay for at least one more day in the East Wednesday, as regional prices ranged from flat to a little more than a nickel higher. Most western points continued to soften, however, led by drops of about a dime in California.

Don’t expect eastern markets to maintain their relative firmness much longer, though, cautioned a Gulf Coast trader, not after AGA reported a storage withdrawal of 45 Bcf last week. That volume fell within a wide range of prior expectations, he said, but was below a preponderance of guesses that had centered around the 60-70 Bcf area. It leaves the year-on-year storage surplus poised to exceed the 1 Tcf mark after next week’s report.

As if to emphasize how unwieldy the storage situation is getting, Northwest Pipeline reported its Jackson Prairie storage facility in net injection mode for Monday and Tuesday despite winter storms moving through the Pacific Northwest.

But a Texas-based marketer doesn’t see much more than moderate softening today. Chicago citygates started in the low to mid $2.60s Wednesday, but plunged into the high $2.30s in late deals as sellers were forced to get rid of their gas at ever-lower numbers, he said. At one point the citygate was nearly a quarter below Henry Hub, he said. However, balance-of-month prices were hanging in at not-too-shabby levels, the marketer added, quoting a baseload Chicago bid of $2.48. He also reported seeing a Henry Hub bid-ask spread of $2.50-56 for rest-of-month gas, only about a dime down from Wednesday.

A Gulf Coast trader was dubious about why prices were up. “I don’t really see any weather doing this [pushing prices higher], and it certainly was not a case of following the screen, so I guess it must be a psychological thing. There’s nothing you can really hang your hat on.”

Quotes for the Permian and San Juan Basins and for a few Rockies points were basically flat, which one source thought was likely an effect of demand from intrastate Texas and the Midcontinent/Midwest markets. The rest of the West was falling because most of the region’s cold and snowy weather was concentrated in relatively low-population states such as Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, he said.

Although the forecasts for below normal temperatures across the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. starting around Sunday has led some to see the possibility of a price rally Friday, a producer scorned such thinking. “Prices will be way down for the holiday weekend,” he said. “So many businesses will be closed that it won’t get cold enough to matter.” After all, he commented, the Chicago market “tanked late today because there’s just no place to put the gas.”

For at least one Calgary-based trader, bidweek is already under way. He reported doing PG&E citygate deals for January in the low to mid $2.80s, slightly above where they averaged in Wednesday’s swing trading. He wasn’t doing any basis deals, but said he was hearing plus 17 cents for the citygate and minus 10 cents for Malin.

However, it was becoming apparent that only traders at Canadian-related points in the West are in a hurry to finish up January business before Christmas, largely due to the Dec. 26 Boxing Day holiday making next week’s workweek quite short for them. “There’s nothing happening yet for next month,” according to a Midwest-oriented marketer. “Something may get done Thursday, but it will be real thin.” Basis was getting a little weaker, he added.

Asked about people trying to finish bidweek deals by the weekend, a Gulf Coast trader laughed and snorted, “It’ll never happen! We’ve already got people trying to leave this afternoon for Christmas weekend trips.”

The Calgary trader mentioned above said he wasn’t worried about being upstaged in bidweek strategy by others who will be trading between Christmas and New Year’s armed with fresher data on weather, storage and the futures settlement. “They [the rest of traders] can take it any direction they want next week. It won’t matter to me. I still plan to be finished Friday morning.”

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