Losing a great deal of air conditioning demand in the South — without enough heating load elsewhere to compensate for it — along with a prior-day futures drop of 18.1 cents proved sufficient to reverse the two-day cash market advance that began this week. Quotes were down in a large majority of the cash market Wednesday.

Several flat to about a nickel higher locations, mostly in the West, were exceptions to overall losses ranging from 2-3 cents to about 15 cents. A majority of declines were less than a dime.

Cash traders will continue to have negative guidance, albeit less than before, from futures Thursday after the prompt-month contract dropped another 7.7 cents (see related story).

The South was hot enough to have a substantial number of air conditioners running as the week began, but temperatures were falling in the region’s western end by Wednesday, and highs around 70 or lower were expected to be common Thursday outside Florida.

The Northeast will remain warmer than normal but be in a cooling trend that had some cities topping 80 Wednesday. Meanwhile, what The Weather Channel called a “strong” cold front will have most of the Midwest experiencing low-end temperatures in the 30s again Thursday. The Rockies is warming a bit but still chilly, while most of the rest of the West can expect to remain cool to mild.

NOVA said Wednesday it was experiencing high linepack that might cause a change of its imbalance tolerance range, but as of mid-afternoon it had not declared any change. On the other hand, Southwest Gas wanted customers to avoid drafting its system because of maintenance-related low linepack on upstream pipes (see Transportation Notes).

Yes, the trend is toward warmer in the Rockies, but Denver got nearly 3 inches of snow Tuesday night, a regional producer said. He said the outage of Questar’s Clay Basin storage facility, lasting through April 14 and costing an estimated 600 MMcf/d of injection capacity, was not hurting Rockies prices as much as anticipated. The Rockies Express takeaway outlet has done a lot to eliminate the price crashes that would have resulted from such a situation in earlier years, he said, noting that CIG basis relative to Henry Hub was only about 20 cents Wednesday.

The Kern River Expansion coming online around the end of week, adding 145 MMcf/d of delivery capacity, will help boost the Rockies market even more, the producer went on. Kern River said late Wednesday that over the next two days it will be completing final system modifications and pressuring up its system to its new maximum allowed operating pressure of 1,333 psig and expects to place the expansion capacity in service effective for Friday’s gas day.

A Midwest utility buyer said his company’s service area was cooler for Wednesday and Thursday after experiencing a dramatic 36-degree temperature drop in about a half hour Tuesday as a “big front went through.” Although mid 30s readings were due Wednesday night, “it should be nice” in the low 70s and sunny for the weekend, he said. Gas demand is off mostly, he added; there’s “a little heat load at night but nothing to get excited about.”

Credit Suisse analyst Teri Viswanath expects a 27 Bcf storage injection to be reported for the week ending April 2, citing a combination of slightly lower heating loads and higher imports during the week to result in higher week-over-week injections. Kyle Cooper of IAF Advisors made a slightly higher estimate of 28 Bcf.

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