As expected, the preceding day’s 41.5-cent dive by May futures had a highly negative impact on Friday’s cash prices, which fell by double-digit amounts everywhere except the Florida citygate. The spread of moderate springtime weather into nearly all of the U.S. except along sections of the Canadian border and the decline of industrial load that accompanies a weekend market were other bearish factors.

Losses ranged from a little less than a dime to about 60 cents. The largest downturns were mostly at Southwest and Rockies locations, with slightly smaller losses occurring at most Midcontinent points.

Despite Friday’s price weakness, the Florida citygate and Dominion in Appalachia along with all Northeast citygates were still seeing $10-plus averages.

Weakness continued in May futures trading, but Friday’s decline of 9.5 cents was considerably milder than the plunge a day earlier.

Going into the weekend the central and eastern sections of the South had lost most of the cooling load that had existed through midweek, as Atlanta and Memphis, TN, were expected to peak Saturday around 70 degrees and in the mid 60s, respectively. However, air conditioners were still in fairly frequent use in Florida and South Texas. Houston’s high was expected to stay in the mid 70s through Saturday before rising into the 80s Sunday through Tuesday.

The Midwest was starting a significant warming trend that would have Friday’s highs increasing by 10-12 degrees Saturday. The Northeast would see relatively little change, with near-freezing lows continuing Saturday in its upper reaches but more southerly locations such as New York City and Philadelphia peaking in the mid 50s and low 60s, respectively, according to Weather Central.

A storm moving through the Northwest would bring heavy (as much as a foot) snow to the northern Rockies and the high Plains of Montana from Friday night into Saturday. Southern sections of the West could expect to remain mild to warm through the weekend, but below-average temperatures in the Northwest “will seep into the Southwest by the first half of the upcoming week,” The Weather Channel said.

Florida Gas Transmission’s extension of an Overage Alert Day into at least its fourth day Friday failed to stem further deterioration of system prices, with Florida Gas Zone 3 plummeting about 55 cents. However, it did limit the Florida citygate to the day’s smallest loss. Cooling demand remained fairly high in the Sunshine State with mid 80s highs forecast for Saturday in Miami and Orlando.

Friday’s weather in Calgary was “not bad,” although snow was predicted late that afternoon, said a local producer. He noted that the Calgary area may continue to have freezing overnight lows until May.

Malin was pretty strong until Friday, when it fell about 40 cents, the producer continued. He said his company had been “getting good returns” on covering its variable transport costs to Malin. NOVA Inventory Transfer (NIT) field receipts were strong last week, he said, but the NIT basis deficit from the screen had gotten weaker.

A Southwest utility buyer expects prices to keep going down slowly in the coming week. He said he didn’t know if there’s much winter weather left in the overall market, but there certainly wasn’t any in his area.

The utility’s gas needs are pretty small currently, being mainly “light bulb” demand instead of cooling right now, the buyer went on. That may change in a couple of weeks, though, as high temperatures might start approaching the 100s. Noting that May 7 is the scheduled date for the return of an off-line Palo Verde nuclear unit, he said the unit’s outage may not be affecting his company much but is allowing greater demand for gas-fired generation in the Southwest as a whole.

The Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/) reported that the number of rigs engaged in searching for natural gas in the United States rose by 11 in the week ending April 4. Eight rigs joined the onshore hunt while the Gulf of Mexico added three, Baker Hughes said. Its latest tally was flat from a month earlier and 1% above the year-ago level.

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