Flat to moderately lower Northeast/Appalachian numbers Wednesday ran against the grain of overall firmer spot prices in which gains were mostly small and quotes ranged from flat to more than 30 cents higher. Virtually all of the increases above a dime occurred at Rockies, Pacific Northwest and Northern California points, which are feeling a touch of winter from a Pacific storm.

The flexing of price muscle is expected to be short-lived, however. November gas futures sent a modestly negative signal by dropping another 2.7 cents on their expiration day, while Nymex’s December contracts for crude oil and heating oil also weakened. Crude passed another psychological marker ($29/bbl) on its way down. And outside the increasingly frigid parts of the West, potentially snowy weather in the sparsely populated Upper Plains was the only fundamental conducive to continued price support.

In addition, the Energy Information Administration is expected to hit the market with a one-two punch Thursday. First, the initial storage report under the agency’s change of survey methodology (see related story) is popularly expected to be in the 60-70 Bcf range. That may not sound like much in comparison with September’s string of weekly refills around 100 Bcf, but it would be large for a report so close to the end of injection season and would whack another big chunk out of the year-on-year deficit. Second, EIA’s retroactive revision of 16 reports dating back to early July is anticipated to indicate a good deal more working gas in storage than previously believed, possibly eliminating the deficit by itself.

There were varying reports about trends during Wednesday’s spot trading. One trader said several Florida Gas Transmission Zone 1 deals rose about a dime from beginning to end. However, a marketer said late numbers were tailing off after an early run-up, quoting Florida citygates falling more than a nickel over the course of morning activity.

October was a cold month east of the Mississippi and a very warm month for the western third of the U.S., according to a Weather 2000 advisory. “In fact, most locations in the East are even eclipsing their impressive HDD [heating degree day] pace from last year,” the consulting firm went on. “The themes of volatility and intense air masses for so early in the season are continuing right through this concluding week of October. Just [Monday], hubs such as Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Birmingham and Houston all had afternoon temperatures at least 10 Degrees below normal.”

Luckily for the West, a reprieve from unusually hot temperatures this fall and from the devastating wildfires in Southern California is “in store at least in the form of some cooler weather,” Weather 2000 said.

A producer said bidweek prices were pretty much unchanged from Tuesday’s partly because the December screen was showing only slight upward movement after the November contract expired.

A utility buyer who paid in the low $4.30s for November gas at Northern Natural-demarc said it was good that next-month prices were lower than swing levels, where he averaged in the low $4.40s for Thursday flow.

A Texas producer commented that “unless they’re buying, people are shying away from doing any Houston Ship Channel baseload business” because first-of-month indexes for that point have been so low in recent months. Buyers may consider it a bargain, he continued, but suppliers felt like they were leaving money on the table by indexing Ship Channel deals.

A Gulf Coast producer was happy to report that “our bidweek has been nice and liquid. We’ve been able to clear up our markets without hassles or loose ends. Coming off this shoulder month to November, we’re dealing in greater volumes. We didn’t have to call everyone down our [trading counterparty] list to move our gas.”

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