Prices continued to rise at a majority of points Wednesday, but in nearly all cases the gains were smaller than the day before, with few reaching double digits. Flat to slightly lower quotes at some points in several areas kept the cash market from a solid bull run.

Normal to above seasonal temperatures were due to remain Thursday in most of the Northeast, Midwest and West, tempering Wednesday’s price firmness. But cash gas was still finding some heating load in a somewhat unlikely region — the South. That helped make the Gulf Coast (outside of its South Texas section) the only market area other than the Midwest to record solid gains at all points.

Sleet, freezing rain and snow were predicted to be mixed Thursday in much of the eastern reaches of the South, with some of that icy precipitation spreading into parts of the Mid-Atlantic, according to The Weather Channel.

Expectations of another large storage withdrawal exceeding 200 Bcf to be announced Thursday morning likely lent some additional support to Wednesday’s price advances, one source suggested.

Bullish traders may find some encouragement in the fact that the “prognosticator of prognosticators” (as a handler called him in the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day), Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil, was reported to have come out of his burrow Wednesday and seen his shadow, which everyone knows means that winter will last six more weeks.

However, as Angela Harper, deputy communications director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, commented, “Though for southerners, it’s worth noting that General Beauregarde Lee — Georgia’s groundhog — has a different take.” And Jimmy the Groundhog in Sun Prairie, WI, joined the General in disagreeing with Phil’s forecast that winter weather will continue into mid-March.

Intrastate Texas prices are following the cold and wet weather patterns that have dogged the Lone Star State this week, a trader said. Texas is expected to start warming up by Friday, but storage and other variables make it hard to say whether that will soften prices Thursday, she added. So far early February is developing into a “routine” gas market, with little volatility and no transport constraints of any substance, the trader said.

A Houston-based marketer noted that Chicago citygates in the high $6.20s lagged behind both Henry Hub and the screen by nearly a dime. That’s a pretty unusual position for the citygate, he said, but it’s based on the Chicago area’s relatively mild temperatures for early February.

Lehman Brothers analyst Thomas Driscoll revised his storage estimate for the week ending Jan. 28 to a 210 Bcf withdrawal. He had previously made an estimation of 185 Bcf. “We had misread the gas-weighted heating degree day total from the NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association] website,” Driscoll explained Wednesday. “The correct gas-weighted HDD data for the week ended Thursday 1/27/05 was 236 gas-weighted HDDs, not 221 gas-weighted HDDs.”

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