Mixed price movement was back in vogue Wednesday in trading for first-of-November flows. Market-area weather trends tended to dictate where gains or losses occurred in some cases, but there were also some anomalies. The cash market continued to have a little prior-day screen support from Tuesday’s 4.7-cent advance by December futures.

A modest majority of points ranged from flat to as much as about 75 cents higher; the largest increases were concentrated in the Rockies. Declines ranged from a couple of pennies to a little more than 35 cents, with the Midcontinent and Texas constituting the weakest market areas.

Futures guidance for the cash market got much stronger with the prompt-month natural gas contract soaring by 30.9 cents Wednesday. But most of the excitement at Nymex was in the oil trading pit, where December crude more than made up for Tuesday’s plunge of $3.15 by spiking $4.15 to a daily settlement of $94.53/bbl after an unexpected further decline in inventory levels was reported Wednesday morning.

SoCalGas made an early-morning declaration of an intraday high-linepack OFO and extended the OFO into Thursday (see Transportation Notes). That resulted in a drop of nearly 15 cents at the Southern California border. But although PG&E also extended a high-inventory OFO through at least Thursday, Malin and the PG&E citygate rose nearly a dime each; however, Southern California border quotes into the PG&E system fell about 15 cents.

Forecasts of colder weather on the way are behind much of this week’s price firmness so far. But the Rockies achieved big gains despite area highs predicted to go up about 10 degrees Thursday; on the other hand, lows are expected to remain in the freezing area.

Temperatures will continue to fall in the Midwest by 10 degrees or more Thursday, but regional citygate gains were fairly modest while the Midwest’s primary production-area supply source of the Midcontinent saw many of Wednesday’s largest losses. Meanwhile, Northeast price increases were pretty hefty in spite of just barely cooler temperatures in the forecast for Thursday. However, a cold front from the Midwest will begin arriving in the Northeast late Thursday night.

Gulf Coast pricing was very much a mixed bag. Most Louisiana-Mississippi-Alabama points rose, but quotes fell at a large majority of Texas points. One source said he could only speculate that the divide was caused by Louisiana supplies being targeted primarily for East Coast markets, while more Texas gas augments the Midcontinent in supplying the Midwest.

Referring to the eye-popping spike by crude futures, a Gulf Coast producer said he had heard “those pricey $100 call options” were getting bought strongly, which was partly what drove the oil strength. But there’s also continuing uncertainty about world geopolitical matters and their potential impact on oil supplies, he said.

Natural gas futures got some help again from the crude market, the producer said, but his company was also seeing some new heating load gains in some areas of the cash market such as the Northeast. And even cooler weather is on the way by the weekend and into next week, he said.

A Southern California source said most of last week’s wildfires in the region have been contained by now, but strong Santa Ana winds will be coming back Saturday, and there are still some fires burning. Until a clearer picture of the November market and season-ending storage levels arrives, most traders that he talks to say they are trying to stay as flat as possible in their gas positions, the source added. The western LDC Forum is scheduled for Monday-Wednesday next week in Los Angeles, so there should be some pretty quiet western markets around then, he said.

Reuters found an average expectation of a 58 Bcf addition to storage for the week ending Oct. 26 in its survey of 21 industry participants. The estimates ranged from 44 Bcf to 66 Bcf, the news service said. Bentek Energy weighed in with an injection estimate of 62 Bcf.

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