The Florida citygate was the sole location left out of falling prices at all other points Tuesday. The overall bearishness was primarily due to the previous day’s plunge of 76.8 cents by April futures, and to a lesser degree to the relatively moderate shoulder-month weather that several areas are experiencing in mid-March.

Nearly all of Tuesday’s losses were in double digits in ranging from about a nickel to a dollar.

Florida Gas Transmission’s warning of a potential Overage Alert Day because of low linepack and high temperatures in the upper 80s being forecasted for central Florida Wednesday was able to lift the Florida citygate by about 15 cents. However, its supportive impact was lacking in the production area, where Florida Gas Zones 2 and 3 dropped about 45 cents and a dime, respectively.

The Carthage Hub in East Texas recorded the day’s biggest decline of about a dollar due to one-day maintenance scheduled for Wednesday by Gulf South (see Transportation Notes) limiting transportation out of the area.

Chances are good for a general rally in the cash market Wednesday after April natural gas futures achieved a 31.4-cent rebound Tuesday, buoyed — as was Nymex’s crude oil contract — by the Federal Reserve’s cut of a key interest rate by 75 basis points. The Midwest will also be in a cooling trend, although temperatures will be rising moderately in the lower Northeast.

Conditions were still spring-like in the South Tuesday, but a cold front will be bringing stormy weather and lower temperatures to much of the region Wednesday. Except for thermometer readings in the 20s in the upper Rockies, most of the West will enjoy a moderate climate.

“Something had to happen,” a Gulf Coast trader said, referring to the Fed’s rate cut. “We’ve had so much bad news” about the economy recently, she added. Although purchaser JPMorgan Chase has guaranteed the creditworthiness of Bear Stearns’ energy trading operations (see Daily GPI, March 18), the trader said she was glad to be able to assure her company’s risk manager that she hasn’t been making any deals with Bear Energy.

She was willing to bet that cash prices will be rising Wednesday because of the strength of April futures recovery. She noted that Henry Hub was bid at $9.22 for 20 MMcf/d Thursday on ICE, which was a little more than a dime above the Hub’s average Tuesday. Because the bid was not being matched by any offers, she thought prices might go up by more than 12 cents. “You wouldn’t think there was that much load” because of little severe cold remaining, but she suspected that a few people might be getting an early jump on storage injection season.

Prices likely will be going lower again Thursday because of the long Good Friday holiday weekend, the trader said.

A Midwestern marketer said her area was around the freezing level Tuesday afternoon and wasn’t expected to get above 40 all week. The good news, though, is there’s no snow left on the ground, she said. She noted that Thursday is the official first day of spring, but added that it won’t seem like it in her city.

Unlike the Gulf Coast trader, the marketer said she would have to consider it iffy whether Tuesday’s futures rebound can rally the cash market Wednesday.

The National Weather Service’s (NWS) six- to 10-day outlook for the March 24-28 workweek projects below-normal temperatures in the Lower 48 states east of a vertical line from eastern Minnesota down into East Texas, with the exception of the Florida peninsula. West of that line, much of the country is expected to exhibit normal to above normal temperatures with the exceptions of northern Oregon and all of Washington, which is expected to experience below normal conditions.

Stephen Smith of Stephen Smith and Associates looks for a storage draw of 94 Bcf to be reported for the week ending March 14. That was up from an earlier estimate of 87 Bcf, Smith said. Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research weighed in with a projection of an 86 Bcf pull.

First Enercast Financial predicted a withdrawal of 84 Bcf, which it said would bring inventories to around 1,314 Bcf.

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