Advances

With a modest (but expected to be brief) respite from harsh cold creeping into the forecasts for some areas, price advances slowed considerably at most points Tuesday and the formerly ultra-strong Northeast market was in wide retreat, with a few citygates seeing dollar-plus losses.

September natural gas futures advanced smartly Thursday, helped by advances in equity markets and crude oil along with a government report showing that slightly less gas was injected into storage than anticipated. The September futures contract rose 19.5 cents to $3.743, and October gained 20.0 cents to $3.988.

As a marketer had anticipated a day earlier, cash prices capped a week of solid advances Friday by recording increases throughout the market. A bit of extra chill was due in the Midwest and Rockies over the weekend, but otherwise forecasts remained about as benign for gas demand as they were earlier in the week. Industrial load’s weekend decline obviously had little impact.

Triple-digit gains at Northeast citygates led strong advances across the board in the cash market Monday as a siege of cold weather was established in nearly all of the U.S. and Canada and threatened to grow even more severe later in the week.

Triple-digit spikes at Northeast citygates led advances at nearly all points in last Friday’s trading for the first two days of January. The coldest and most widespread frigid weather of the winter season so far is expected to be in place in most of the U.S. and Canada as the new year begins.

Losses of up to a dime at several scattered points, primarily in Appalachia and the Gulf Coast, kept price advances from running the board Monday. Predictions of above-normal temperatures this week in the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. and buzz about the possibility of a disturbance moving toward southern Florida from the Bahamas strengthening and getting into the Gulf of Mexico were the chief market boosters.

With more technological advances to unlock emerging natural gas plays in the U.S. onshore, gas reserve additions continued to surpass oil reserve growth last year, with the top 50 U.S. producers increasing total gas reserves by 11.8% to 127.8 Tcf, according to a survey by energy analyst John S. Herold.

Technological advances are critical to increase the deep-gas component of the domestic gas supply mix, and the Department of Energy (DOE) is touting four new technologies being developed by Honeywell as part of DOE’s Deep Trek research program. The new electronic drilling components are designed to enable effective finding and production of gas lying three to five miles below the earth’s surface.

The February aftermarket got off to a strong beginning Tuesday with advances across the board. They were spurred largely by the screen’s huge run-up of nearly 90 cents the day before and to a lesser degree by modest growth in heating load.