Faced with a lengthy new siege of cold weather that could come close to rivaling the blizzard experienced last weekend, all Northeast citygates shot higher by multi-dollar amounts Wednesday. And once again the rest of the cash market appeared quite bland in comparison, with price movement seldom varying by much more than a nickel up or down from flat, although gains extended as high as about 35 cents (Dominion in Appalachia) and losses ran as big as half a dollar (Transco Station 45 in the Gulf Coast).

Highs were expected to be in single digits Thursday for New England and much of New York, and even in the Mid-Atlantic not to get above the 30s. Some of the Northeast cold was due to push into the eastern reaches of the South, while mostly seasonal mercury readings were forecast for the Midwest.

The West, which spent much of the early part of this winter season as the nation’s nearly sole repository of cold weather, will see temperatures ranging from above normal to near average in most sections. Only the mountainous areas will get below freezing and they should see highs in the 30s, according to The Weather Channel.

A marketer said he doesn’t think the forecasts indicate that Northeast weather will get quite as severe as last weekend, but it certainly will be cold enough for the region to see robust gas demand into next week. Northeast basis for February “came off quite a bit” Wednesday, he said, but so far bidweek has been essentially a nonevent for his company as most traders in the Northeast market have been kept hopping by the daily price volatility.

A Texas electric utility’s fuel buyer said she was inactive in the market for the time being because of mild temperatures throughout most of the state.

The force majeure at the Palmyra (NE) Compressor Station of Northern Natural Gas, which ended Wednesday (see Transportation Notes) didn’t seem to have much impact at all on Demarc pricing, said a Midcontinent marketer. Parts of the Midwest may be cold currently but it won’t be sustained, he said, so he sees mostly flat to moderately lower prices in that market in the near term.

The marketer said he hadn’t realized until asked about it by NGI that like in the December bidweek, February futures will expire on the same day that a storage report is released a few hours earlier. But he was of the opinion that the Energy Information Administration should hold off on making its report until Friday to avoid any possibility of repeating the late-November price disaster. The EIA has opened itself up to a lot of scrutiny as a result of that debacle, he said, and the industry will be outraged if it makes another big mistake.

The marketer concurred with other reports that for whatever reason, bidweek trading had slowed down a lot Wednesday. He said he did no new February deals that day. However, he thought it was “awfully surprising” how weak Chicago basis was getting considering the screen hadn’t seen a lot of change. He reported seeing a Chicago deal done Wednesday at basis of minus 10 cents, which was the cheap end of a range of minus 10-4 cents. He also reported hearing talk about a “boring” bidweek.

A Midcontinent/Southwest trader also said she had been fairly active in February business Tuesday but things had slowed so much Wednesday that she had no new deals to report. However, from what she was hearing, February numbers had change very little. The day market may be very strong in the Northeast but it’s pretty lackluster everywhere else, she said. There’s virtually no weather-related demand in intrastate Texas, where daytime highs are in the 70s, she said, adding that the state will be getting “a little colder” over the next few days, but not by much.

Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper made a final estimation of a 211-221 Bcf withdrawal to be announced in Thursday morning’s storage report. This report will probably reduce the current surpluses to the year-ago, three-year average and five-year average levels, but not by much, he added.

©Copyright 2005Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.