Much like on Tuesday, most of the cash market tended to level off Thursday. Unlike Tuesday’s trading that brought an upturn largely to a halt, however, Thursday’s numbers arrested a price slide. With a modest bias to the downside, nearly all points ranged from flat to up or down about a nickel Thursday. Only San Juan-Blanco’s drop of about a dime broke the overall price mold.

Sources said a trend toward milder weather fundamentals in key market areas helped push prices lower at first, but then the Energy Information Administration reported at mid-morning that 48 Bcf had been put into storage last week. Although the volume jibed well with most previous expectations centered around 50 Bcf, Nymex traders saw it in a positive light and took the November futures contract to a gain of a little more than a dime shortly afterward (the screen eventually ended the day only slightly over 7 cents higher, though). Whatever remained to be done in cash business also rose in price along with futures, a marketer said.

A producer commented that the storage number had seemed neutral or slightly bearish to him, so he had trouble understanding why Nymex found it bullish instead. He thought that at least initially producers will test the waters for higher prices Friday based on Thursday’s futures uptick, but said it was a toss-up on whether higher offers would get hit or not.

However, a utility buyer in the Midwest is looking for flat to softer prices Friday, saying declining weather load and the demand slump usually associated with a weekend period would negate the firming impact of futures. “I think there’s no doubt they [Thursday’s prices] would have been quite a bit lower if it weren’t for the Nymex gain this morning,” he added.

A marketer quoted Katy starting at $3.91 but running all the way up to $4.04 late in a “following the screen” mode. “I figure that I am injecting all that gas anyway, so I can easily pay the $4.04 with the screen where it is.”

A Northeast utility buyer reported that the cold, wet and windy weather that had been predicted for Wednesday “wasn’t as bad as we had expected” and that “very fine” conditions Thursday were expected to last into the weekend.

There was “not a lot going on” in the market again Thursday, said a marketer quoting Rockies prices mostly in the low $2.10s. He couldn’t recall any significant maintenance or other flow issues in the Rockies currently except for two opposite situations: Northwest was still cautioning about low linepack in its northern end, while Kern River had recently admonished shippers against banking gas on the system because of high linepack.

A marketer reported intra-Alberta prices down about C2-3 cents despite estimating that about 200 MMcf/d was off the provincial market because of NOVA’s Peace River Mainline outage being extended through Sunday.

The lack of liquidity issue isn’t going away. A western trader discussed it: “Cash volumes are fairly low, and there’s not much volatility. Once your credit is stretched out, you just don’t have many people that you can trade with. It can get especially hard towards the end of the month.”

He continued, “I have noticed a little less ‘cowboying’ going on and much more [emphasis on] fundamentals. Also, small shops are creeping back into the game with the prepay strategy. You can’t be troubled with credit if you don’t buy gas with credit. It’s got some serious risks, though; if you plan poorly or your customers don’t pay, you could be floating for awhile. But if you can find the right niche, a small shop can do very well.”

Referring to the EIA’s storage report, a bearish Midwest trader said, “I thought cash would come off some, but it did not. We’ve got room to come down significantly before the end of the month, but will the market behave? Will there be logic?”

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