Prices kept moving higher in cash trading Wednesday, the official first day of autumn. Despite mild to cool weather prevailing in most areas, the market rode the momentum of a day-earlier screen spike of nearly 36 cents and Gulf of Mexico production shortfalls that remain slow in being eliminated.

Although CIG in the Rockies was flat, the rest of Wednesday’s upticks were fairly consistent across the geographic spectrum in ranging from about a nickel to a little more than 20 cents.

The pace of restoring offshore output picked up a little as Minerals Management Service reported that a smidgen more than 2,400 MMcf/d remained shut in Wednesday based on reports from 18 companies (see related story). That was a gain of nearly 400 MMcf/d from Tuesday, which had seen a production increase of only a little more than 100 MMcf/d from Monday. MMS noted that Hurricane Ivan had destroyed seven platforms, four of which were not included in its tally of 32 platforms still evacuated. It also said the shut-in report did not include production lost due to the destroyed platforms.

Complications may have set in later that day, as Tennessee said late in the afternoon that it had identified “a potential structural issue” with the South Pass 55 Central Gathering Platform. It declared force majeure and required that six meters connected to the platform shut in until further notice.

An offshoot of Ivan in the Gulf of Mexico may not become a hurricane or even a tropical storm, but tropical depression status seemed attainable as it moved toward the Louisiana and Upper Texas coast with “squally bands of rain,” The Weather Channel said. In addition, Weather 2000 said the remnants of Ivan had crossed Florida and were in the Gulf again Wednesday. Relative to other tropical storms the Ivan leftovers are rather feeble, Weather 2000 said, but considering the proximity to the Gulf Coast and the “extremely warm waters,” it wouldn’t take much for them to reach wind speeds of 50-70 mph.

“Storm hype” is playing a role in raising both cash and futures prices, said a producer who trades the Northeast. He noted that prices were relatively kind of weak during the actual hurricane event last week, but had shown a lot more strength since then as the extent of supply disruption became clearer and it became obvious that production would take longer to recover than expected. “It’s been a very long time since we’ve had this much damage offshore, maybe not since [Hurricane] Andrew” in 1992, the producer observed. People may have thought Ivan wasn’t having much offshore impact at first, but their perception has changed since then, he said.

In the Northeast it’s not hot enough for air conditioning load nor cold enough for heating load, he continued. The leaves have started to turn colors, which usually indicates cooler weather, but conditions are still pretty mild, he said. The producer thought the cash market has at least one more day of firmness in it Thursday, but then EIA’s storage report will set subsequent price direction. An injection of 70 Bcf or more should be enough to drive Thursday’s late trading and Friday’s overall numbers lower, he said. But it should be noted that analysts are expressing little confidence in their prior estimations of the report because the impact of Hurricane Ivan is hard to quantify, he added.

A marketer found it a bit odd that “Chicago has been so strong” despite little weather demand and not being as directly affected by Gulf Coast supplies as some other markets. But prices there have gotten some support from Northern Border cutting about 15% of firm service to Chicago currently due to maintenance at Station 18 this week, he said, and there’s also a bit of other gas off the market for various reasons.

In one reflection of a possible approaching storage crunch, as of Monday Northwest’s Jackson Prairie Storage Facility had less than 1 Bcf of working gas capacity still available. The facility had 20,393,280 dekatherms stashed away that day out a total capacity of 21,237,307 dekatherms, Northwest reported Wednesday.

In its outlook for the Sept. 27-Oct. 1 workweek, the National Weather Service anticipates above normal temperatures throughout most of the U.S. The above normal readings will occur north and west of a line that begins at the lower Arizona-California border and excludes all or most of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana before curving up through the Mid-South into the Northeast, NWS said. The only area where the agency expects below normal temperatures is along a thin sliver of the South Atlantic coast from North Carolina southward until it expands to include all of Florida except for the Panhandle.

A Midwest marketer said he was taking some time off from spot trading for now to concentrate on long-term business. The process was complicated by “a lot of regulatory fears in that market,” he said. The problems were more at the state commissions than with the feds at FERC, he said, “but of course the pipes do have their concerns” about compliance with FERC actions.

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