Buoyed mostly by storage demand, modest firmness continued to dominate eastern markets Tuesday, although a few points were flat and only Transco Zone 6 non-New York managed a gain of more than about a dime. Softness reigned in most of the West, which not coincidentally is the only region that was not drawing down storage in the last two Energy Information Administration reports.

Permian-Waha numbers managed to evade the overall western weakness with minor gains, and California and the Pacific Northwest kept their losses fairly small at around a nickel. But with regional heating load continuing to fade, the Rockies and San Juan Basin saw declines on either side of a half dollar.

Though most of the U.S. enjoys suitably spring-like conditions, the Northeast still had a touch of winter mixed into its forecast for Wednesday and could still legitimately claim a modicum of heating load. Air conditioning load still is not making a significant impact in the South; Tuesday’s high temperatures in the region didn’t get above the 70s except in the Florida peninsula.

Ana, which created a brief stir despite having no appreciable market effect Monday because of the rarity of a subtropical storm so early in the year, trumped that distinction by being upgraded to tropical storm status late Tuesday. Ana developed winds of 50 mph as it drifted eastward in the Atlantic southeast of Bermuda without posing any threat to land.

A couple of traders expressed doubt that prices could keep rising much further amid generally moderate weather. Not only did the natural gas screen lose nearly 7 cents Tuesday, but the crude oil and heating oil contracts posted major declines, with crude dropping more than a dollar to settle at less than $30/bbl.

“It’s the usual story: we’re looking at the storage deficit and waiting to see what EIA says Thursday,” said a Mid-Atlantic utility buyer. There seems to be a lot of buying in the Gulf Coast, he added, and due to the lack of weather-related demand, “I have to believe most of it is for storage.” He remarked that the market doesn’t seem “as complicated as it used to be,” saying that probably is related to the weeding out of many former trading counterparties over the past year or so.

A Midwest utility buyer was a bit surprised to see “prices coming up a little even with practically no weather support.” Midwest weather will stay mild through the weekend, “and then it gets even nicer” next week, she said. The buyer reported hearing May basis for the Midcontinent in general at minus 5-2 cents.

For all practical purposes the market is operating on cruise control for now, in one source’s viewpoint. Swing trading activity is fairly muted, he said, and although some people started to discuss May business Tuesday morning, “it seemed like it faded out pretty quickly around noon. He was hearing May basis talk of minus 50 cents for El Paso-Permian and minus 40 cents for Waha. That may sound pretty weak, the source acknowledged, but he thought it was because the screen remains so much stronger than usual for a shoulder month, and people are making basis weaker as partial compensation.

The source anticipates substantial storage buying for May. “People figure they’d better buy now instead of later when the prices are likely to be higher,” he said.

“Warm weather last week leads us to expect a larger than average injection and a reduction in the storage deficit (vs. the five-year average),” said Lehman Brothers analyst Thomas Driscoll. He projected that EIA will report an injection of 50 Bcf for the week ended April 18. Kyle Cooper of Citigroup expects a build of 41-51 Bcf.

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