Despite moderate warming getting under way across much of eastern North America and in the southern, northern and coastal sections of the West, cash prices, with the support of a prior-day screen gain of 4.4 cents, still managed to find enough weather-based load — particularly in the Rockies — to record increases at a large majority of points Wednesday.

Although one source had his doubts, attempts to top off storage accounts as the beginning of the traditional withdrawal season draws near may have contributed a bit of extra demand.

Losses ranging from a couple of pennies at Transco Zone 5 in the Mid-Atlantic up to about C15 cents at Empress and NOVA Inventory Transfer in Western Canada were the only exceptions to quotes ranging from flat to about a quarter higher.

The cash market likely will finish October with lower prices. After achieving a modest rebound a day earlier, November futures went off the board with a dive of 26.8 cents Wednesday. Late “book-squaring” and the general weakness of fundamentals were cited as reasons for the big expiration-day decline (see related story).

Because of the Nov. 1 month-to-month transition falling on a Sunday, Thursday’s trading will be for flow dates through the end of October on Saturday, and Friday deals will be made for Sunday-Monday flows.

The Florida citygate again saw the day’s biggest gain after Florida Gas Transmission extended an Overage Alert Day through at least Wednesday. Florida deliveries edged out the PG&E citygate on the other side of the nation by about a dime in recording the market’s highest average.

It was looking a lot like winter had arrived in the Rockies following heavy snowfalls Wednesday, and more was on the way Thursday, according to The Weather Channel (TWC). However, Rockies prices were much like other regions in making only small gains. Transportation constraints were believed to be responsible for the Canadian export point-related locations of Sumas, Kingsgate and Stanfield rising about a dime or slightly more.

Significant heating load was somewhat scarce outside the Rockies and Western Canada, though, as most of the Midwest, Northeast and non-Rockies West was forecast to peak in the 50s and 60s Thursday. There may have been a bit of air conditioning demand for Thursday in Florida and the west end of the South, where highs were expected to reach the low to mid 80s and even the 90 area at some Florida locations. However, the western South can expect temperatures to plunge to well below average Friday, TWC said.

A Northeast utility buyer said he thought the cash market was making “minor adjustments” Wednesday and that was doing more to cause the small gains than continued storage buying. His own company was “right where we want to be” on storage going into November, he said. Northeast weather is still relatively moderate for late October, he added, but the region should see wintry conditions come on more strongly after it gets a ways into November.

The buyer said his utility’s perception is that it hasn’t seen a lot of Marcellus Shale production coming online “yet.”

A Midcontinent producer said he didn’t have time to talk Wednesday afternoon. He explained that he was having to reconfigure some bidweek deals because of pipelines cutting nominated volumes. “There’s just too much gas” trying to find a baseload home in November, he lamented.

A marketer in the Midwest said her company was glad to see the expiration-day screen plunge because it made November gas cheaper for customers. She reported buying at last-day settlement basis of plus 30 cents into Consumers Energy and plus 32 cents into MichCon. She speculated that one reason for the late futures weakness may have been that the marketing company was seeing forecasts of fairly moderate weather in nearly all of the U.S. through at least the first week of November.

The National Weather Service (NWS) predicts above-normal temperatures throughout nearly all of the southern two-thirds of the U.S. during the Nov. 2-6 workweek. In its six- to 10-day forecast posted Tuesday afternoon, NWS excluded only normal temperatures in the northwest corner of California and southernmost Texas in saying it looks for such conditions everywhere south of a line running almost due east from the northern edges of Nevada and Utah to northern Delaware. Below-normal readings are expected only in a swath along the Canadian border from northwest Oregon through the northwest corner of Minnesota.

Tim Evans of Citi Futures Perspective is projecting a storage addition of 45 Bcf during the week ending Oct. 23, to be followed by builds of 50 Bcf and 25 Bcf for the weeks ending Oct. 30 and Nov. 6, respectively.

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