After two days of mostly small upticks to begin the week, it was time Wednesday for a large majority of small gains to be the market’s main feature. Winter may have officially begun Tuesday, but the new season wasn’t readily evident, judging from the generally mild forecasts for its second day in most of the eastern third of the U.S.

One thing that remained much the same was seeing the largest losses in the Northeast, although the regional downturns were significantly smaller than a day earlier. Overall, losses ranged from 2-3 cents to a little more than a quarter (Algonquin citygate). Of the flat to about a nickel higher quotes, most were concentrated in western areas.

It appeared during morning Nymex activity that moderately negative January futures would provide negative guidance for next-day cash numbers, but instead another small boost resulted from the prompt-month contract eventually inching its way higher to a gain of 2.7 cents on the day (see related story).

The winter storm that previously had devastated travel and caused other problems in the Upper Plains and other sections of the West was starting to show similar effects in parts of the Midwest. The Northeast is due to be chilly but stay well above freezing Thursday, while the South will be fairly comfortable for early winter with highs from the 50s to 70s.

Ruby Pipeline returned to having full design capacity available Wednesday (see Transportation Notes).

A Gulf Coast trader said Wednesday’s minor softness was chiefly due to some declines in heating load, but he thinks slight gains will return again Thursday both from colder Midwest forecasts going into the weekend and Wednesday’s small screen gain. However, January is the month that should be cold enough in northern market areas to start to put a dent in storage surpluses, he added.

A marketer in the Upper Midwest said her area is not looking for either a white nor an especially cold Christmas, with lows around 40 or so. For the most part December is living up to its previous billing as unusually mild, she said.

The marketer’s company is having a little trouble from having bought too much December baseload for customer usage, she said, and is having to sell some back, contributing slightly to the market’s general bearishness. However, its usual supplier says he’s seeing others having even worse problems with excess gas, she said.

Despite that, the marketer plans to buy a little spot gas for the Christmas weekend and transfer it from the company’s Consumers Energy account to one with Michcon because one client is still using a fair amount of gas behind the MichCon system.

Withdrawals from Southern’s two storage fields are lagging well behind the pace of the previous two years. The pipeline’s bulletin board said that as of Dec. 15, inventories stood at 55.6 Bcf, or 93% of a total 60.0 Bcf of working gas capacity. Comparable numbers are 49.1 Bcf (82%) on Dec. 16, 2010 and 51.4 Bcf (86%) on Dec. 17, 2009.

Credit Suisse’s Stefan Revielle said he anticipates a storage withdrawal of 104 Bcf being announced for the week ending Dec. 16. Stephen Smith of Stephen Smith Energy Associates said he has not changed his original estimate of a 103 Bcf draw. IAF Advisors analyst Kyle Cooper weighed in with an expectation of 98 Bcf. Tim Evans of Citi Futures Perspective had the highest estimate among the four analysts at 109 Bcf, which he expects to be followed by draws of 81 Bcf, 103 Bcf and 107 Bcf in the weeks ending Dec. 23, Dec. 30 and Jan. 6, respectively.

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