The National Weather Service (NWS) reaffirmed that next week’s colder temperatures — on which many traders had based price hikes earlier this week — are still there, but apparently their market strength had already been milked for all they were worth. Quotes were in mild to moderate retreat in all regions Thursday.

Except for slightly larger declines at some Northeast citygates and scattered points elsewhere, eastern softness generally was limited to about a nickel or less. Most of the West recorded drops on either side of a dime, but Malin and intra-Alberta were western renegades by being down by only about 3-5 cents.

Sources were virtually unanimous in continuing to insist that the bullishness of Tuesday and Wednesday never had any fundamental justification in the first place, but instead was just a smoke-and-mirrors trick forged by screen technicalities and the potential for extra weather-related demand a week later. Retrenchment was inevitable, they said, and the only surprising thing was that it didn’t come before Thursday.

NWS said that for the five-day period starting next Wednesday, it predicts below normal temperatures throughout the U.S. east of a line snaking from Washington state through the Rockies to the western tip of Texas.

Prices continued to fall in late deals Thursday, said a marketer who traded Henry Hub in the low $2.40s but saw numbers near deadline in the mid to high $2.30s.

A Midcontinent producer said she was “on the fence” about whether prices will continue to fall today in deference to lower weekend demand or continue to hold their own. Parts of the Midwest are getting chilly and occasionally snowy weather, she pointed out. A Gulf Coast aggregator backed the second option, saying he expects current pricing to move little through the end of February.

Shell Exploration & Production (SEPCo) confirmed Thursday that its Brutus tension leg platform has been shut in since Feb. 12 due to valve failures in the production processing system. The platform, located in deepwater Green Canyon Block 158 offshore Louisiana, was producing 90 MMcf/d of gas and 60,000 b/d of oil from four wells before the outage began. A fifth well was already shut in, but ongoing drilling of a sixth well was unaffected. SEPCo will use the downtime to expand oil production capacity to 130,000 b/d. President and CEO Raoul Restucci said the company expects the repairs and expansion activities to take at least a month.

A producer reported trying to shop some March deals around Thursday, “but nobody was interested.” Prices were looking to be in the upper $2.30s for Midcontinent pipes in general while Access was in the mid $2.40s late Thursday afternoon, with basis running about minus 8-6 cents, the producer said. A marketer quoted Henry Hub basis at plus 1-1.25 cents.

Another marketer said he doesn’t expect anybody to do anything but indexed and basis deals for March through today, saving any fixed-price commitments until after the weekend when fresher weather forecasts and the Nymex settlement will become available.

A Southeast utility buyer, who had no swing quotes to offer Thursday because “we’re too warm to need anything,” said she doesn’t expect to buy any March baseload and will rely on the day-to-day market instead. She saw a good chance of “lucking out with lower prices in the aftermarket. Everybody’s been waiting for this high-priced house of cards to fall for a long time.”

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