Abetted

A 5.4-cent rise in May futures on the previous Friday was abetted by moderately chillier weather that developed over the weekend and the return of industrial demand from its typical weekend hiatus in causing prices to range from flat to about a dime higher at nearly all points Monday.

A 5.4-cent rise in May futures on the previous Friday was abetted by moderately chillier weather that developed over the weekend and the return of industrial demand from its typical weekend hiatus in causing prices to range from flat to about a dime higher at nearly all points Monday.

As a Texas marketer had suspected, Tuesday’s decline of 15.8 cents by March futures was sufficient to take cash prices lower Wednesday, abetted by moderate warming trends in some areas. Although he thought some of the areas experiencing the most severe winter weather might be able to keep firming, it turned out that double-digit drops occurred across the board.

As a Texas marketer had suspected, Tuesday’s decline of 15.8 cents by March futures was sufficient to take cash prices lower Wednesday, abetted by moderate warming trends in some areas. Although he thought some of the areas experiencing the most severe winter weather might be able to keep firming, it turned out that double-digit drops occurred across the board.

Continuing cold in a number of weekend forecasts, abetted to some degree by the previous day’s 4.6-cent gain by November futures, kept a majority of points on the rise Friday. However, anticipation of milder weather returning to several areas early this week combined with the usual weekend decline of industrial load to induce softness at a greater number of locations than on Thursday.

Primarily due to some serious cooling load developing across the southern half of the U.S. (especially in the more heavily populated South) and abetted by a smidgen of chilly weather remaining in the forecast for the upper Northeast, the cash market was able to shrug off the previous day’s 2.9-cent decline by May futures and rise at a majority of points Wednesday.

A futures swoon of about $1.21 over the previous two days, abetted by further erosion of cooling load in some areas, led to further declines in most of the cash market Wednesday.

Forecasts indicating dwindling heating load in the Northeast and less cooling load in the western half of the South, abetted by the previous day’s drop of 23.6 cents by June futures, caused cash prices to sink at most points Tuesday. But although transport-constricted San Juan Basin numbers continued to fall, Rockies points recovered some of the major price ground they had yielded Monday.

Only the Florida citygate’s drop of a quarter prevented an across the board cash rally Thursday that was largely abetted by a 21.1-cent gain in November futures the day before and to a lesser degree by modest to occasionally substantial heating load in most areas outside the desert Southwest.