A majority of prices continued to drop Monday after more moderate weather showed up over the weekend in much of the East. The previous Friday’s 27.5-cent drop by January futures also contributed to the overall cash market bearishness.

Frigid forecasts, with lows in the 20s Tuesday, restored mixed price movement Monday after Friday’s across the board declines as most points in the Midcontinent, Rockies and elsewhere in the West were flat to up a little more than $1.15. All of the triple-digit spikes occurred in the Rockies.

The rest of the market saw price drops ranging from about a nickel to 95 cents or so. The largest dips were in the Northeast, where Transco’s two Zone 6 pools took the biggest hits. New York City is beginning a rapid warming, with its high predicted to go from around freezing Monday to the low 50s Tuesday.

Cash quotes will again have negative futures guidance after the January natural gas contract fell another 17.6 cents Monday despite strength in Nymex’s crude oil product offerings.

The Northeast respite from the cold allowed Transco to say it will lift an Imbalance OFO Tuesday (see Transportation Notes). However, the pipeline noted that cold temperatures will be returning to its market area Thursday, at which time it will reinstate the OFO.

The South also is warming up, with many locations in its western end due to bask in relatively balmy 70s highs Tuesday.

Predicted lows in the 20s helped boost Midcontinent and Rockies prices, but similar heating load in the Midwest market area, where temperatures are expected to bottom out in both the teens and 20s Tuesday on the region’s western side, failed to have any positive price impact.

The Southern California border and SoCal citygate rebounded on either side of 30 cents after Southern California Gas allowed a high-linepack OFO that had been in effect Saturday and Sunday to expire Monday.

The number of drilling rigs seeking for natural gas in the U.S. fell by another 15 to 1,428 during the week ending Dec. 5, according to the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/). Two rigs were added in the Gulf of Mexico, but 17 quit the search onshore, Baker Hughes said. Its latest count is down 7% from a month earlier and 4% less than the year-ago level.

Analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey/the Gerdes Group noted that over the past four weeks the gas rig count “has declined by 111 rigs to its lowest level since early February.”

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