Afternoon

Northwest ended on Wednesday morning a Declared Deficiency Period that it had issued late Tuesday afternoon in connection with emergency repairs to the #2 unit at La Plata Compressor Station. Northwest had said it would cut scheduled volumes through the station to 250,000 Dth/d in the Intraday 2 nominations process for Tuesday’s gas day, but would wait until the Intraday 2 process Wednesday before cutting volumes scheduled for that gas day in the hope that repairs could be completed by midday.

Lightning was suspected as the cause of a 50-minute power outage Wednesday afternoon that knocked out power to nearly half a million people on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and in the western part of the Bronx, Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (ConEd) said last week. The utility also was blitzed by more outages in other parts of the city following severe thunderstorms later Wednesday night.

After enduring an ill-fated Tuesday morning rally to a high of $7.065, April natural gas futures reversed direction in the afternoon to record a $6.885 low before settling at $6.892, down two pennies on the day. Despite the second consecutive sub-$7 settle, some market experts warned that the recent trading behavior, combined with the potential for supportive crude and gas inventory reports over the next two days, could mean that the bulls aren’t out to pasture just yet.

Pacific Gas & Electric waited until Monday afternoon to issue a systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO for Tuesday that carried penalties of $1/Dth for exceeding an 11% tolerance for positive daily imbalances. The OFO was allowed to lapse Wednesday.

The headline on The Weather Channel’s (TWC) next-day forecast posted Thursday afternoon said it all: “Bitter cold for much of the country.” As could be expected, prices continued to rise at most points Thursday, with only a few flat to nearly 20 cents lower Northeast citygates preventing all-points gains.

After running higher to record a $6.450 high on Thursday, February natural gas futures came off in the afternoon and settled at $6.162, nearly unchanged from Wednesday’s $6.163 close. Going forward, most weather forecasts for the heavy gas demand East continue to see warmer-than-normal temperatures, while AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi sees a bit of a cold snap hitting next week.

Continuing the above normal temperature theme from the beginning of winter, Andover MA-based WSI Corp. said Tuesday afternoon that it expects the January-March period to average warmer than normal across the northern two-thirds of the country with below normal temperatures confined to the southern tier of states. If the forecast holds up, lower natural gas and power prices are sure to follow, analysts say.

Breaching the upper limits of its recent trading range, December natural gas futures recorded a new high of $8.380 Tuesday afternoon before going off of the board at $8.318, up 32 cents. The Canadian cold air mass over the Midwest and West that is expected to make its way into the East by late in the week also kept other contracts strong. The January natural gas futures contract climbed 20.2 cents on the day to close at $8.559.

Wyoming Interstate Co. reported completion of repairs late Thursday afternoon to a segment west of Cheyenne Station where a rupture had occurred on the previous Saturday (see Daily GPI, Nov. 14) and said it was fully available for service again.