A gradual trend toward more autumn-like temperatures (or downright wintry in a few northern areas) and modestly growing comfort levels with the restoration of Gulf Coast onshore and offshore infrastructure finally proved great enough Thursday to reverse what had been a near-solid progression of rising prices earlier in the week.

Flat to barely higher numbers at several western points along with a couple of other scattered upticks kept the softening trend from being unanimous. Overall declines ranged from a little less than a nickel (the smallest ones were concentrated in the West) to more than a dollar. Most were in double digits.

Wednesday’s screen decline of just over 4 cents likely played a small role in the cash weakness Thursday. But there was little doubt that all-around plunges in energy futures Thursday will have a much stronger influence on weekend prices.

The Energy Information Administration was within the range of prior expectations but a little above the consensus with its report of a 44 Bcf storage injection for the week ending Sept. 30 (see related story). Futures traders took the moderately bearish news and ran with it — all the way down to a settlement of $13.375 in November natural gas futures, representing an 80.8-cent plunge. Nymex’s petroleum-based offerings also took a price beating. Crude oil dropped more than a dollar to $61.36/bbl, its lowest level in a little more than two months.

Offshore producers kept this week’s quickened pace of reducing hurricane-induced shut-ins going. Minerals Management Service said reports from 68 companies (down from 75 Wednesday) indicated that Gulf of Mexico outages had fallen to 6,628.07 MMcf/d Thursday (see related story). That was just shy of 267 MMcf/d less than the day before. However, it still meant that Gulf output is about two-thirds less than normal.

Cash trading maintained a conspicuous absence at Henry Hub Thursday despite force majeures having been lifted for several pipes with Hub connections (see related story). The main hindrance to renewed trading is a lack of compression at the Hub due to not having any power. However, a marketer said he expects to see cash deals being reported at Henry Hub again Friday for the first time in two weeks.

A Gulf Coast trader said a cold front moving into the South, along with cooling rains from the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy in eastern sections of the South, had resulted in a dramatic reduction in demand. It was considerably more difficult than before to place the gas of her producer clients Thursday, she said. However, she noted that pipelines are “stuffed” in North Louisiana because of so much supply being unavailable from South Louisiana and offshore. “Everything seems to be overscheduled” in North Louisiana, the trader said. More conventional autumn-like weather may be just what the market needed to control runaway prices, she added.

The sell-off at Nymex spilled over into late cash deals, reported a Northeast marketer. Mild weather in the market area equated to almost no demand at all, he said. He echoed the opinions of other sources in saying that between weak weather fundamentals and Thursday’s huge screen drop, “I think it’s safe to expect very soft weekend prices.”

A utility buyer in northern Florida said her city was not catching much grief from Tammy other than heavy rain Thursday. Slowly but surely volumes are getting easier to find on Florida Gas Transmission, she said, adding that she doesn’t have to make as many calls to suppliers to get daily purchases done as in the past few weeks.

With cold fronts invading virtually every market region, there will be little if any air conditioning load through the weekend. However, a little heating load could result from predictions of snow and/or freeze advisories Friday in parts of the Midwest, Upper Plains, Rockies and Pacific Northwest.

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