Prices continued to soar Tuesday, as a precursor of winter spread from the Midwest into the Northeast and Southeast market areas. Gains tended to be even stronger than those recorded in Monday’s post-weekend rally, with a majority of points jumping by about half a dollar or more.

However, it was evident well before the end of trading that this week’s burst of bullishness was already a part of the past. Henry Hub reached the mid $2.80s at its peak, but was up for grabs at $2.25 by deadline, a Gulf Coast trader said. In addition, late that morning he was seeing a $2.20-27 bid-ask spread for the Hub over the Thanksgiving weekend. But a moderate rebound took effect subsequently, as another source reported $2.34-36 weekend Hub numbers at mid-afternoon.

Another indicator of approaching softness came from Northern Natural Gas, which issued an OFO for all market area zones to take effect Thanksgiving Day (see Transportation Notes). Gas Control was anticipating a warming trend beginning Wednesday in the Upper Midwest and wanted to avert an excessive linepack situation, a spokeswoman explained.

“It didn’t take a call to Miss Cleo’s hotline to predict softening holiday prices,” quipped a western trader. Indeed, several Daily GPI sources had indicated Monday that a letup in the cold spell was due by Wednesday or Thursday, depending on market area. Warmer temperatures were already spreading Tuesday from the Southwest into the Rockies, and a similar trend was expected for the Midcontinent/Midwest region today.

Noting the OFO declaration by NNG and one already in place by Tennessee, a Gulf Coast source said it might be easier to count the pipelines that don’t issue OFOs over the four-day weekend than to count the ones that do. A price “bloodbath” is a possibility today, he warned. But a western trader thought numbers might hold up a little more strongly in his market area because of forecasts for temperatures above normal in the East and below normal in the West next week.

Meanwhile, several Northeast citygates averaged above $3 Tuesday while other regional prices weren’t far below that level, according to one marketer. “It’s the first real weather we’ve had, even if really wasn’t all that cold,” he said. People emerging from the weekend in short supply positions continued to fuel the upticks, he noted. Flat natural gas futures during the morning again constituted a non-event for cash, but the crude oil and heating oil contracts achieved hefty advances.

Once again hyper-volatility reigned in the cash market, but in a reversed pattern from the day before. “Yesterday [Monday] it was volatility toward the upside; today it’s all volatility toward the downside,” an aggregator said. A marketer agreed, noting that Chicago fell more than 60 cents from its early morning highs. “There are a lot of market disconnects in this kind of volatility,” he said, referring to production area quotes that often may substantially exceed market area delivered prices depending on when the individual deals are made.

The December bidweek occurs next week, but it was hard to find anyone thinking about that Tuesday. “Nobody wants to bother with December business before the long holiday,” a Houston-based marketer said. “Too much can change in market influences between now and next week.” But he added that next month’s index-related prices appeared to be strengthening a bit. Chicago citygates previous had been offered at slight discounts to index, “but now it [citygate] is flat to slightly higher,” he said.

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