Although going into the weekend sub-freezing lows were still in the forecast for the Northeast, Midcontinent/Midwest, Rockies and Western Canada, prices fell at a large majority of points Friday. A general warm-up was predicted for several areas by the time the Presidents’ Day holiday arrived. The extra loss of industrial load associated with a holiday weekend and the previous day’s 4.7-cent decline by March futures also contributed to cash market bearishness.

Another factor in Friday’s price drops was the subpar storage pull reported a day earlier, which reinforced confidence levels that inventories are still stout. And a utility buyer indicated that with only about one and a half months left in the traditional withdrawal season, companies such as hers are accelerating their storage use at the expense of new spot gas purchases.

Several flat to about 15 cents higher points, most of them in the Midcontinent, averted an across the board run of softening. Losses ranged from 2-3 cents to a little more than 35 cents and tended to be largest at Northeast citygates.

Tuesday’s cash market will continue to have modestly negative screen guidance after the March natural gas contract fell another 3.3 cents Friday, ignoring a big spike by crude oil futures (see related story).

In a Friday advisory, the Weather 2000 consulting firm said the U.S. was wrapping up the “Week of the Thaw” as winter plotted its return. Heading into the holiday weekend, there was a lot of buzz last week about a major East Coast winter storm starting this coming Wednesday, but the start date then was “pushed off to Thursday and now to next Friday,” Weather 2000 said. A conducive breeding and track environment for such East Coast snowstorms had been expected to become reality, it added, but not until the final week of February and March.

The market ended the week with virtually no pipeline constraints of any substance in place. However, the DCP Midstream East Texas Plant at the Carthage Hub remained out of action as the question of which pipeline near the plant had ruptured remained unanswered (see related story). Carthage trading had dwindled to almost nothing; NGI received only two essentially flat quotes for the hub Friday.

NOVA Inventory Transfer numbers fell another C15 cents or so despite predictions of single-digit lows continuing in Calgary.

Although rising temperatures were expected in several regions by the beginning of this week, only the South and Southwest will be well above freezing.

A Midwestern utility buyer said area lows in the teens would continue through Sunday, then rise into the 20s for a couple of days before returning to the teens around Wednesday. Noting that 6-7 inches of snow had fallen in her city Friday, she said the cold weather was good for the gas distribution business. Also, the utility still had more gas in storage than it wanted, and the most recent burst of frigid conditions was allowing it to reduce storage account volumes to more desirable levels. After all, there’s not much winter left at this point, she said.

A marketer said he was glad to have been able to leave the office early Friday afternoon, as many traders do going into a holiday weekend, but that meant he was “driving home through a snowstorm.” Local lows would continue to be in the teens through much of the weekend, he said, but a warming trend should be in place by the holiday.

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