The slope for sliding prices got considerably steeper in nearly all of the market Thursday, although a few western points managed to hang tough with flat performances. The factors of mild weather pervading much of the East, prior-day futures weakness, lack of tropical storm threats to offshore production and realized expectations of a bearish storage report all contributed to the overall softening.

Not counting the occasional flat western point, losses ranged from a minuscule 2-3 cents to just shy of 30 cents. A large majority were in double digits, and quite a few dips exceeded 20 cents.

The Northeast and Midwest have been thoroughly cooled off by a cold front that had proceeded into the South Thursday, and both northern market areas could record some date-specific record low temperatures Friday morning or over the weekend, according to The Weather Channel.

The cash market has one more day to try avoiding a virtually solid week of falling prices, but that’s unlikely to happen. A Gulf Coast marketer reported that gas were already trading for the weekend about a nickel or so lower than Thursday levels. For example; Henry Hub was about 15 cents below the screen settlement Thursday, but moving to about 20 cents back in several weekend deals in which he participated that afternoon, the marketer said.

Cash was much weaker Thursday, as expected, he continued. “A lot of gas is being offered by sellers, but hardly anybody wants it.” Northeast utilities are finding it easy to “say no” to Gulf Coast supplies, he added. The market is too weak fundamentally for Thursday’s energy futures gains, even the new record in crude oil, to be able to rally cash prices, he said. In addition to the fundamentals, “you’ve got to remember that industrial load drops during a weekend,” he said.

The Energy Information Administration’s estimate of an 83 Bcf storage injection last week dovetailed nicely with prior expectations — in fact, the volume was the exact midpoint of Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper’s 78-88 Bcf estimation and only 2 Bcf below the 85 Bcf projection by Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers. It was considered bearish on the basis of easily topping the comparable five-year-average and year-earlier numbers.

However, the screen achieved a daily advance of just over a nickel not because of the storage fill, but because of a spectacular reversal by the oil product offerings at Nymex. At least one cash trader was wryly amused at the super-volatility in the crude oil contract. Only a day after plunging more than a dollar to less than $43/bbl, September crude regained all that and more Thursday to establish yet another all-time high daily settlement of $44.41. The outlook for giant Russian oil producer Yukos to continue its exports, which seemed to have brightened considerably on Wednesday, was considered in jeopardy again after the government barred Yukos from access to its bank accounts.

Former Tropical Depression Two was getting a little stronger again Thursday after being dismissed as a market nonevent the day before by being downgraded to a tropical wave. However, the National Hurricane Center didn’t deem TD2’s chances of reorganizing worthy of reopening discussion on the system.

A cold front had arrived in North Texas but didn’t cool things off as much as residents had hoped, according to a marketer in the region. Texas utilities didn’t cut gas buying much Thursday, she said, but recently they’ve shifted notably away from the day-ahead gas market toward more same-day purchases. Otherwise the market is “routine,” she said.

An Upper Midwest trader said local temperatures were in the low 70s Thursday afternoon “with a nice breeze.” Conditions will get a little warmer to around 80 degrees in the Midwest early next week, she said, but a rally in gas prices just isn’t in the cards. The traders said she could only assume that the natural gas screen was up a little due to limited relinking with the oil spike, because Nymex couldn’t have bid gas higher based on current fundamentals.

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