End-of-January prices reacted to moderating weather trends (either already under way or impending), Thursday’s screen loss of a dime, and lower weekend industrial load by dropping across the board Friday. The Northeast again was far out in front in leading the charge downward with multi-dollar plunges that had citygates returning to something more closely resembling “normal” levels.

Non-Northeast declines ranged from about a nickel to nearly 70 cents. The West recorded most of the smaller dips because a winter storm was due to spread from the Pacific Northwest into parts of the Southwest.

Apparently the latest siege of frigid weather in the Northeast wasn’t lasting as long as had been thought earlier in the week, when a couple of sources said it was predicted to run into early February. “We’ll get a little warm-up over the weekend,” said a marketer in the region. He reported being unaware of any new bidweek business still being done Friday.

An icy storm had come to the Southeast as predicted and was expected to continue into Saturday, but the resultant heating load proved insufficient to avert double-digit price losses at virtually all Gulf Coast points. The forecast called for most precipitation to end in the area Sunday and for temperatures to rise above freezing that day.

A Lower Midwest utility buyer said his service area was “a little above normal” with temperatures just below freezing Friday afternoon, but it could expect mercury levels to be up around 40 degrees by Tuesday. He reported doing no February baseload deals, saying the company is still riding its storage and term contract supplies.

The weather has “warmed up quite a bit in the Chicago area” from the sub-freezing highs earlier in the week, said an industrial end-user. Bidweek was fairly routine, he said, with his company buying much of its gas at index. He agreed with another source’s prior assertion that the Chicago citygate index should wind up in the mid $6.30s. February Sonat prices are especially strong for some reason, the end-user said. He didn’t know if that was related to about 400 MMcf/d of Sonat’s offshore supply remaining offline due to Hurricane Ivan damage or an ice storm moving into its Alabama/Georgia/South Carolina market area late last week.

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