Tuesday’s 48.7-cent dive by June futures had the expected impact of pushing cash prices lower at most points in the launch of the May aftermarket Wednesday. Slowly moderating weather trends in the Midwest and Northeast also contributed to the softness. However, forecasts of sharply lower temperatures in the Rockies Thursday helped prices there to recover partially from their great weakness on Tuesday.

Losses ranged from a couple of cents to about 55 cents. Flat to half a dollar higher numbers were concentrated in the Rockies but occurred at several other scattered points.

Strange as it may seem while entering the merry month of May, near-blizzard conditions can be expected Thursday in the Black Hills of South Dakota and maybe will even spread into the lower elevations of southwest North Dakota, western South Dakota and western Nebraska, according to The Weather Channel (TWC). However, these areas are generally sparsely populated and thus have little impact on overall gas demand. And otherwise highs in the rest of the Midwest and in the Northeast will be rising two to three degrees Thursday, with most in the 60s.

A late-season snow is also likely in the northern Rockies, TWC said, and again near-blizzard weather may result in far southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming. Denver is expected to see a dramatic drop in high temperatures from 74 Wednesday to 44 Thursday accompanied by a freezing low of 32.

Another indicator of why the Rockies market defied overall softness is that Kern River reported low linepack levels in the two farthest downstream of its four segments.

More of the South is starting to reach peak temperatures in the 80s with each passing day, but obviously that hasn’t stirred up enough cooling load yet to keep Gulf Coast prices from falling Wednesday.

Northern Natural-Ventura was the site of the biggest price decline, and the pipeline’s bulletin board illustrated both why the point was so weak Wednesday and why it has a good chance of rallying Thursday. Northern Natural’s normal system weighted temperature at this time of year is 53 degrees, the posting said. It was projected to be at that level Wednesday and dropping only slightly to 51 Thursday, but then fall all the way to 42 Friday before rebounding a bit to 44 Saturday.

Despite Florida Gas Transmission warning of a potential Overage Alert Day because of low linepack and forecasts of warmer weather in its market area, Florida Gas Zone 3 recorded the Gulf Coast’s largest drop of about 35 cents.

Thursday’s cash market will have neutral screen guidance after the June futures contract started higher Wednesday, fell to a double-digit loss and then eventually recovered to eke out a minuscule 0.1-cent gain.

Noting that Wednesday’s last PG&E citygate deal was for $10.60, the bottom end of the point’s range, a western trader said that was a hint of still-lower prices Thursday. California is heading into a period of mild weather, she said, so California prices should be soft for a while.

The trader said May baseload prices in the West were “way down” Wednesday, likely in response to the futures plunge a day earlier, but the small volumes involved won’t drag indexes lower. It’s going to be easy for aftermarket prices to be below first-of-month indexes after such a weak start, she added.

Barclays Capital Research analyst George Hopley expects a 73 Bcf storage injection to be reported for the week ending April 25.

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