Prices ranged from flat to about a dime higher in nearly all cases Thursday. Most gains were generally small at around a nickel or less. Only San Juan Basin and Iroquois Zone 2 recorded marginal losses of 2-3 cents.

As sources had expected, the moderate strength of Wednesday’s screen was reflected in Thursday’s cash upticks. The cash market likely will continue to rise for the most part Friday based on even greater futures support Thursday following the storage report, a couple of traders said. They also noted that although Tropical Depression Edouard was fading as a threat to offshore production, a new depression in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico was causing even greater concern about potential shut-ins.

The Energy Information Administration reported that 65 Bcf was injected into storage last week. The volume fell nicely within the range of prior expectations, but Nymex traders apparently regarded it as bullish because, after an initial move lower after the report, the screen began rising and ended the day up just shy of 15 cents. Crude oil and heating oil futures also rose sharply, with the crude contract settling only 2 cents short of $29/bbl on a report of falling U.S. inventories and what one source called a “returning war premium” (potential of U.S. attack on Iraq).

Tropical Depression Six’s center was about 100 miles southeast of Galveston, TX at 4 p.m. CDT Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. It was expected to develop into Tropical Storm Fay sometime either Thursday night or Friday. A tropical storm warning was issued for the coast between Matagorda, TX and Intracoastal City, LA.

At 5 p.m. EDT Thursday Edouard was over water again about 100 miles southeast of Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle and moving toward the west, NWS said. However, The Weather Channel predicted that strong shearing winds would keep Edouard from restrengthening.

A Florida utility buyer commented, “We’ve got to hope Edouard [and TD Six] doesn’t become a hurricane in the Gulf, but then it’s been quiet, maybe too quiet, on the hurricane season front so far.” She noted that Florida Gas Transmission had tightened the imbalance tolerance for a long-running Overage Alert Day notice from 15% to a more stringent 5% Thursday, but thought the move was due more to supply-end conditions rather than any extra market-area demand.

A marketer said Rockies numbers, now back up in the $1.00 vicinity again, were starting to approach first-of-month index levels, “but it’s really a crap shoot about whether they can get there with both Jackson Prairie and Clay Basin storage so close to full.” He added that he hadn’t expected Rockies prices to tank so badly into the $0.40s Tuesday because of a Northwest Pipeline outage set for Wednesday.

Another western trader said that Gulf tropical storms have less effect on his region’s market than in the East, so to him, “the Merc is everything right now in the cash market.” He went on to say that Westcoast’s warning about recent high linepack (see Transportation Notes) didn’t seem to be having any adverse impact on Sumas and Westcoast Station 2 prices, which were up about a nickel and a little more than C10 cents respectively. Intra-Alberta quotes also were up a little more than C10 cents, which could have been partially due to some moderate heating load. A source said Calgary was experiencing temperatures around 40 degrees F. Thursday.

There was definitely more volatility than usual Thursday, a marketer said. “Cash was all over the place. The anticipation of the storage number pushed the market down, then up, and when the EIA’s number came out cash went down and up again. I don’t know how much more time we have to inject, but we have to be close to full on storage.”

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