Several Northeast locations soared Thursday as forecasts of subfreezing lows stretched further south into the region. But with even more frigid conditions occupying the Midwest and Rockies, and getting pretty cold by the South’s standards, prices fell in almost all of the market outside the Northeast.

The Northeast was rather selective about price movement, as a few softer points and ones with small upticks were included among the region’s overall gains ranging from a little less than a nickel to about 90 cents. Except for a nickel gain at Sumas and a flat Florida citygate, all other non-Northeast locations saw declines from 2-3 cents to about 15 cents.

More gas got taken out of storage than expected in the week ending Jan. 6, as the Energy Information Administration’s report of a 95 Bcf pull exceeded analysts’ consensus expectations in the upper 80s Bcf. However, the actual volume still fell far short of comparisons with a 128 Bcf five-year average, and February futures dropped by 7.7 cents (see related story).

A winter storm caused plenty of problems in the Midwest Thursday, but even with sometimes heavy snow expected through the night in the Upper and Middle Mississippi Valleys and western Great Lakes, The Weather Channel (TWC) said above-normal temperatures will already be returning Friday in much of Michigan and Ohio. Northeast highs will be in the 30s and 40s for most on Friday, with a shot of more frigid highs Saturday in the upper 20s and 30s) before temperatures start to rebound into next week, TWC said.

Chilly thermometer readings are in store for most of the South, but only the southern Appalachians is likely to experience any snowfall. The Rockies will be getting warmer through the weekend, but still be recording subfreezing lows at least through Saturday along with Western Canada and parts of the Pacific Southwest.

Tennessee and Southern are about to join other pipes — primarily serving the Northeast — in implementing restrictions to prevent linepack from dropping too much in the current period of severe cold in much of the East (see Daily GPI, Jan. 12).

Although their actual temperatures were well above freezing, the Shreveport, LA and Houston areas both had “feels like” readings of 28 at mid-morning, according to a posting on the CenterPoint bulletin board.

A western utility buyer said his company had experienced increased heating load for a day or two earlier in the week, “but it didn’t really make a lot of difference.” Now, although service-area weather is still pretty chilly, temperatures are trending upward again, he said.

The buyer said for now he is not looking beyond late January for weather forecasts, but it looks quite unlikely that the utility will be challenged on meeting heating demand this winter. In regard to a couple of recent reports in NGI about other utility buyers using so little storage gas that they may have to sell leftover inventories at a loss in order to meet cycling requirements, the western source said his company has little in the way of traditional storage, and what there is is not subject to cycling rules.

Chicago-area buyers apparently were serious about preparing for forecast lows on either side of 10 degrees Thursday and Friday, as Bentek Energy’s U.S. Natural Gas Hub Flows chart showed a tremendous surge of 727,000 MMBtu (up 33%) in nominated flows for Thursday at the Chicago citygate. But at the same time prices there fell 16 cents Wednesday and nearly another dime Thursday.

Bentek also reported big volume increases Thursday of 229,000 MMBtu (up 7%) at the PG&E citygate and 155,000 MMBtu (up 12%) at Northern Natural-Ventura. On the other hand, it found large declines of 815,000 MMBtu at Texas Eastern M-3 (down 22%); and 128,000 MMBtu at MichCon (down 14%). Overall, nominations declined (generally by small amounts) at 11 of the 23 trading locations covered by the Bentek chart, were flat at two points, and rose at the other 10.

Despite the Chicago citygate’s price weakness, IntercontinentalExchange said transaction volumes there on its online platform soared from 800,800 MMBtu Wednesday to a whopping 1,014,700 MMBtu Thursday.

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