Flat to modestly softer numbers were the hallmark of Wednesday’s cash market as the price-supporting characteristics of this week’s snowstorms in the Northeast and Midwest continued to wane. However, gains of up 18 cents were noted at some Northeast citygates.

Most of Wednesday’s losses were less than a dime. The ones that ran into the teens were clustered in the Midcontinent and in the Permian and San Juan Basins.

Temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast actually were predicted to sink further into sub-freezing territory Thursday, but both regions were expected to be largely free of further icy precipitation. Light snows in the Northeast will be confined to the mountains and areas immediately downwind of the Great Lakes, according to The Weather Channel, while nearly all of the Midwest and Plains regions will be free of snow except near the Great Lakes.

Close to seasonal temperatures are expected for most of the South and West, which means heating load will remain fairly light.

The Northeast’s cold “is not that bad for March. It was much worse in January,” said a producer who trades at regional citygates. Demand still remains “good,” he added, even though price movement has slowed down greatly in the last couple of days. He expects a repetition of flat to slightly weaker prices Thursday, to be followed by softening all the way around on Friday due to the approach of slightly warmer weather and the weekend’s loss of industrial load.

Temperatures will stay cold in the East through next week, the producer noted, but he added the clarification that “normal” temperatures will be getting warmer as March goes on. There are minor transportation constraints on pipelines to the Northeast, he said, but none that can’t be handled fairly easily.

In a similar vein, a Southwest marketer reported that she was having no problems working around several maintenance restrictions that are under way on Transwestern and expects no problems either with constraints on El Paso’s North Mainline that begin March 8 (see Transportation Notes). She bemoaned what she called “the lack of winter in Texas,” saying the intrastate market was almost dead.

Little market impact is likely from Thursday morning’s storage report unless the Energy Information Administration announces a withdrawal that is totally out of line with prior estimations centering on the 110s Bcf.

The National Weather Service expects this week’s cold weather in the East to extend through the March 7-11 workweek. It predicted below normal temperatures for that period everywhere east of a line running southward just inside the western boundaries of Minnesota and Iowa before swinging southwestward through Kansas to encompass all of Oklahoma and Texas and most of eastern New Mexico. The agency looks for above normal readings everywhere west of a line through the western Dakotas, then veering southwestward through Colorado into central Arizona.

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