Accompanying

As traders had predicted based on Thursday’s below-expectations storage report, the accompanying March futures drop of nearly 19 cents and the usual extra loss of industrial load over a long holiday weekend, the entire cash market was united in softer prices Friday.

After another large storage injection volume from AGA and the screen’s accompanying plunge Wednesday, it wasn’t a very tough call to predict falling cash numbers Thursday. Sure enough, a price rout was on as nearly all points fell by about a quarter or more when fundamental demand factors proved unable to make up for the twin depressants of a further futures drop Thursday and the record-setting pace of storage refills so early in the injection season.

In a reflection of Wednesday afternoon’s meager storagewithdrawal report and the accompanying screen downturn, most cashpoints fell between about a dime and 20 cents Thursday. The majorvariations from the overall market were Northern Californiaupticks, flat to barely lower numbers in the Rockies and San JuanBasin, and a Southern California border decline of nearly 40 cents.

A mild European winter with accompanying low heating oil priceswas the saving grace for U.S. industrials that took advantage ofthe flood of heating oil imports to switch off high-priced naturalgas. Revised estimates by Raymond James Associates show industrialsswitching at 5 Bcf/d during the coldest part of the winter, ratherthan the 3 Bcf/d originally estimated.

Although you couldn’t tell from rapidly depleting gas storagelevels or lofty gas prices, this winter turned out to be thewarmest on record for the United States, according to a report bythe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And it was thethird winter in a row in which record warmth cooked the UnitedStates.