As expected, spot prices fell at most points Wednesday under the weight of prior-day futures weakness, the extra decline of industrial load during a four-day holiday weekend and only moderate heating load going into the weekend in such areas as the Northeast and South.

Several instances of flat to a little more than 40 cents higher quotes, primarily in South and East Texas, ran against the grain of overall drops ranging from a couple of pennies to nearly a dollar. Although some eastern points fell by as much as 40-45 cents, western markets took all of the biggest hits. The issuance of a high-linepack OFO by SoCalGas created large losses at the Southern California border and in El Paso’s San Juan Basin and Permian Basin pools.

Activity Wednesday was predictably light due to many traders either taking the day off or leaving the office early. Virtually all deals were done for flows through Monday despite Nymex planning to have an open-outcry futures trading session Friday.

The Energy Information Administration reported a net storage injection of 4 Bcf for the week ending Nov. 16. That was within the range of previous expectations but slightly bearish in comparison to consensus estimates centered around unchanged. The East region’s 11 Bcf withdrawal was outweighed by net injections in the Producing and West regions (see futures story). Nymex traders gave Monday’s cash market a bit of support by pushing December futures 7.3 cents higher.

Citigroup analyst Tim Evans commented, “The 4 Bcf build was slightly larger than generally expected, but not a complete surprise. It does imply a modest bearish shift in the supply/demand balance that will ripple through our forecasts, though.”

What had been predicted a week earlier to be a significant cold wave over the holiday weekend in the eastern U.S. was proving to be relatively meek. Although Thanksgiving Day lows in the 30s and 40s were forecast Wednesday in the Northeast and South, highs in the 50s, 60s and occasionally 70s tended to subdue heating load purchases. Freezing lows were expected from the Midwest through the Plains and Rockies, but they also failed to avert weaker prices in most instances.

It had been snowing in his area since 9:30 Wednesday morning, said a Midwestern utility buyer, and local forecasters thought there could be six inches on the ground by Thanksgiving. He reported picking up a weekend package at Northern Natural-Ventura for about a dime less than Tuesday’s price. He also said he sold into NGPL. There was no profit from the sale, he said, “but I was happy to get rid of the gas.”

The National Weather Service (NWS) six- to 10-day forecast posted Tuesday for the Nov. 26-30 workweek calls for below-normal temperatures in the northern third of the U.S. from the Pacific Northwest as far east as New York state and Pennsylvania. The area of below-normal readings bulges southward in the center as far south as the Texas Panhandle and also includes the northern halves of Nevada and Utah. Below-normal conditions are also expected in the southern two-thirds of coastal California. NWS predicts above-normal temperatures everywhere in the Southeast south of a line running along the southern edge of North Carolina through northern Georgia and Alabama before curving to the southwest through central Mississippi and southeast Louisiana.

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