Cash prices fell virtually across the board Friday, depressed by forecasts of moderate weather in most regions and the previous day’s drop of just over a quarter by April futures. The decline of industrial load during a weekend was an additional, albeit minor, bearish influence.

Only a flat CenterPoint-West, which is the only point averaging less than $2, avoided losses ranging from a little less than a dime to a little more than 40 cents. Unlike the rest of the week, when Northeast citygates were way out in front of price moves both upward and downward, Friday’s declines were spread fairly consistently throughout geographic market areas.

Last Monday all Northeast citygates had sported averages in quadruple digits, but from Wednesday onward they traded at less than half of their week-starting numbers.

The PG&E citygate and Malin, which had gotten a boost Thursday when PG&E issued a systemwide low-inventory OFO for Friday, each were down about a quarter Friday after the OFO was lifted.

Most of the weekend’s remaining cold weather with lows around freezing or less was concentrated in the relatively sparsely populated northwestern quadrant of the U.S. and Western Canada, although Eastern Canada temperatures were due to bottom out not far above freezing Saturday.

Sections of the Midwest along the Canadian border were likely to experience snow Sunday through early this week, The Weather Channel (TWC) said, but the rest of the region would be fairly moderate. A similar forecast was applicable for the Northeast, where New York City was predicted to peak in the mid to upper 50s Saturday. Meanwhile, the South was due to continue basking in weather that more resembled mid to late spring with highs in the 70s and lower 80s.

“It’s beautiful weather here,” said a western utility buyer, adding that judging by Friday’s market it appears the gas market has written off winter for the most part. March is the utility’s lowest demand period of the year, so it occasionally tries to sell excess gas supplies, he said. This is especially so for weekends, “although we usually arrange to buy some of it back for Mondays only when industrial load returns,” he said.

The buyer said his company has been ratcheting downward its monthly load forecasts for the past several months, but it still seems to overestimate each time. Much of it has to do with the bad economy and housing market, he said, noting that foreclosed homes are using little if any electricity or gas.

A marketer in the Upper Midwest said her area can expect a couple of days of “normal” chilly temperatures in the coming week, but mostly the weather will be above normal. She said she was buying spot gas for company clients this week, but only in small amounts because of light weather-based demand.

Analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey/the Gerdes Group had something of a good news-bad news note for the gas market Friday. First the bad news: In aggregate, February storage data suggest industrial gas demand continues to run 2-3 Bcf/d lower y/y” (year-over-year), the analysts said. But in a more price-positive observation, they said gas-fired power generation demand appears to have increased around 0.5 Bcf/d y/y in February, “which suggests some migration away from coal-fired to gas-fired power generation may be occurring (coal/gas prices are currently at rough parity).”

The number of drilling rigs exploring for natural gas in the U.S. continued its headlong plunge, dropping by 54 to 916 during the week ending March 6, according to the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/). Only one rig quit the search in the Gulf of Mexico, Baker Hughes said, while the onshore count plummeted by 53. Its latest tally was down 17% from a month earlier and 37% less than the year-ago level.

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