With cooler weather in the process of replacing the mid-spring heat surge that had allowed prices to ride increased power generation load to higher levels in most cases during the first three days of the week, it was hardly surprising when quotes fell across the board Thursday.

Only Questar’s drop of slightly under a dime prevented a sweep of double-digit losses. Otherwise declines ranged from a little more than a dime to nearly 30 cents.

A moderately bearish storage report and mild retreat by the screen, along with the typical weekend drop in industrial demand, are expected to extend cash softness into Friday’s trading. However, cold fronts moving into the Midwest and Northeast are due to continue on through the South this weekend, leaving snow and freezing temperatures behind in parts of the northern market areas and taking frost warnings and freezing thermometer levels as far as the deep Southeast by Sunday, according to The Weather Channel. Thus, eastern price losses are likely to be small and some points could see even modest firming from the newfound heating load.

The Energy Information Administration estimated that an extra 50 Bcf got stashed into storage inventories during the week ending April 15. It fit within the range of prior expectations and was considered slightly bearish because of such a sizeable volume so early in the traditional injection season. But as one analyst has repeatedly said about the storage report’s market impact, “Who cares?” Nymex traders didn’t seem to care much, as the screen got as low as $6.88 in its initial reaction but then trended back higher to end the day at $7.032, down only 2.5 cents. The petroleum futures complex, driven primarily by concerns about unleaded gasoline supplies, was moderately higher.

“We’re supposed to get snow and freezing overnight lows this weekend!” exclaimed a marketer in the Upper Midwest, although she noted that area weather was “nice” Thursday. She hoped for softer prices Friday, but said it was hard to say whether the approaching restoration of heating load would be enough to rally cash numbers.

Meanwhile, a Lower Midwest utility buyer reported summer-like temperatures in his area lately, but added, “There’s a frost warning a couple of days out” that should get some people turning their furnaces back on for at least a while. He didn’t expect to get into the May baseload market, saying, “May is a pretty ho-hum month for us” in both gas and electric load.

It was an “uneventful market” for a Calgary-based producer, who noted that both futures and cash prices keep “bouncing back and forth but have stayed in a tight band lately.” Although injection capability was restored earlier this week at Questar’s Clay Basin storage facility, a new limit on Clay Basin injections for at least a month (see Transportation Notes) will have a slightly bearish effect on the Rockies/Pacific Northwest market as more domestic supply is forced to compete with Sumas gas on Northwest Pipeline.

The producer said he has “had all kinds of [May] numbers thrown at me that I don’t like.” He reported hearing early basis talk of Sumas at minus 77 cents and Malin at minus 56 cents.

A Gulf Coast trader said she would have expected a bigger Nymex drop than what actually happened after the storage report. She said she was trying to finish bidweek business Thursday, “but I don’t think it will happen.” The trader went on to add jokingly that producer clients “often want index plus 3 [cents] in an index minus 2 [cents] market. And they want it that way for just 20 Dth/d!” She reported getting a bid of current Nymex minus 6 cents for TGT Zone 1 Thursday, but didn’t have the supply available to fulfill the contract. “He [bidder] said he was just trying to set a fixed price early,” which led the trader to suspect that he thinks screen will be getting stronger toward settlement.

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