“Storm hype” obviously was not a factor in Thursday’s cash market as all but one point fell in response to the return of mild weather — either impending or already accomplished — in nearly all regions and the previous day’s fall of 19.7 cents by December futures.

The Florida citygate, up about 15 cents, again was the exception to the overall market trend. Everywhere else prices were dropping from about 15 cents to 45 cents or so.

Nymex traders seemed rather unimpressed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) report of a 29 Bcf storage injection during the week ending Oct. 30, which was a bit less than consensus expectations in the low 30s Bcf. Prompt-month futures spent some time in the vicinity after the report before finally settling 5.7 cents higher on the day (see related story).

Tropical Storm Ida graduated to hurricane status for a while before reverting to a tropical storm Thursday afternoon while traversing the eastern end of Nicaragua. At 4 p.m. EST the National Hurricane Center said Ida was continuing to weaken, with heavy rainfall in its area remaining the primary concern.

There was still uncertainty about whether Ida would be able to survive long enough to become a menace to production in the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Weather 2000 didn’t think so. “Ida’s biggest obstacles for the next several days [are] not water temperatures or disruptive wind sheer, but rather the destructive frictional effects from the mountains of Nicaragua and Honduras,” the consulting firm said. It expected the storm to weaken back to a tropical depression during it overland journey. Assuming it reaches the Bay of Honduras, warm waters there should allow some restrengthening, but then Ida is likely to face a brush with the eastern end of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. But Weather 2000 concluded that even “if it is no longer a classified system at that point, whatever entity is related to Ida should be entering the GOM at some point early next week.”

Three people were hospitalized with burns after a 24-inch diameter El Paso Natural Gas line exploded early Thursday morning in the Texas Panhandle (see Transportation Notes). El Paso Corp. spokesman Robert Newberry confirmed an Associated Press (AP) report of the injuries, but said the pipeline did not know “what the flowrate was at this time.”

“We had a rupture and a fire Thursday morning and were notified around 1:15 a.m. [CST],” Newberry said. “At this point we’re investigating. We’ve sent a team to the site to figure out what happened.”

In a posting on the home page of its website, Atmos Energy, the local distribution company for the area, said about 366 homes and businesses had lost gas service in the nearby town of Bushland and its Prairie West subdivision due to the rupture. It said it had experienced personnel on the scene and expected to begin restoring service by mid-afternoon Thursday. A call to Atmos for an update was not returned.

AP quoted local authorities as saying the explosion shook homes, melted window blinds and sent flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air. Potter County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Roger Short said firefighters were able to contain most of the flames by 5:30 a.m. although small grass fires continued to burn, according to AP. Newberry confirmed that nearby residents were evacuated to Bushland Middle School but were able to return home before dawn. One house was destroyed and several others were damaged in Bushland, AP said.

Rockies producers got some good news Thursday from Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) asking FERC to authorize the start-up of service on its REX-East leg between the Lebanon Hub meter station and the Clarington Hub meter station (both in Ohio) by the end of next week, which will mark completion of the entire 1,678-mile pipeline (see related story).

The SoCal citygate recorded Thursday’s biggest loss after SoCalGas not only issued a high-linepack OFO for Friday but also said it anticipated that it would have no injection capacity left at its storage fields (see Transportation Notes).

A Rockies producer made a “rough estimate” that as much as 500 MMcf/d of flow could be affected by the El Paso rupture. He noted that REX’s eastward progress had forced some Anadarko Basin producers to try to move more gas west to the California market, but now that gas connected to El Paso is stranded for the time being unless it can find a market upstream of the ruptured section. Rockies prices could see some upward impact from being called on to replace stranded Anadarko production, he said.

But for now the market is very weak, the producer continued, with very mild highs in the 70s appearing in Denver. “We’re doomed on weekend prices Friday” unless maybe Ida appears to be getting more threatening to GOM production, he said.

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