Amounts

Most points were up by double-digit amounts Monday due to new or continuing bouts of cold weather, the previous Friday’s futures gain of 27 cents and the return of industrial load from weekend hiatus. Northeast citygates comprised the conspicuous exceptions to overall firmness; although regional temperatures were still due to be below normal for mid-winter Tuesday, they would be up a few degrees from Monday, according to The Weather Channel.

In Tuesday’s trading for flows on the first day of November, prices were down by double-digit amounts at all points. Seasonal temperatures in many areas and a prior-day screen drop of 41.1 cents were primarily responsible for the bearish cash market.

All points were on the same price page Wednesday, rising by large amounts in nearly all cases as a polar air mass that had already occupied the Midwest and Plains threatened to spread its heating load influence into parts of the South and Northeast. And although the West will still be mild to warm in the desert Southwest and inland portions of the West Coast states, it has its share of weather-related demand in the Rockies, where Denver is expected to see a second straight low in the high 20s Thursday.

Not surprisingly, the cash market fell by mostly large amounts at all points Friday, feeling negative pressure from relatively little appreciable cooling load outside the desert Southwest, another prior-day screen drop, the lack of any new tropical storm activity and the extra loss of industrial demand over a holiday weekend. The storage situation also remained bearish despite Thursday’s report of a 48 Bcf build in the previous week falling a little below expectations.

Cash prices rebounded by double-digit amounts at all points Monday in response to a surface low-pressure area in the southern Gulf of Mexico moving northward toward the Texas coast and heat levels returning to seasonable levels in the Northeast and Midwest market areas.

Cash prices fell by double-digit amounts at all points Wednesday as cooling demand across the southern U.S. proved unable to withstand the loss of prior-day screen support and mounting bearishness about storage.

Prices fell by large amounts across the board Thursday. An impending change to colder weather would not yet be under way to any significant degree Friday, and cash quotes felt the negative pressure of the previous day’s futures plunge of nearly 60 cents. The screen traded Thursday morning nearly $1.50 below the $9.82 peak it had reached during Wednesday morning’s cash market activity.

Due to fundamental influences remaining weak, eastern prices continued to fall at nearly all points, generally by large amounts. However, thanks to an infusion of cold and snowy weather across the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies along with the removal of OFOs by California’s two biggest distributors (see Transportation Notes), western markets generally saw a mix of large and small rebounds from Friday’s across the board plunges.

All points were up by substantial amounts Tuesday, and many saw major gains approaching or occasionally exceeding a dollar. Then cash traders, in addition to whatever early bidweek business they pursued, spent much of the rest of the day marveling at and/or being mystified by super-spikes throughout Nymex’s energy futures complex, with the natural gas screen skyrocketing by $1.334 to finish at $14.338.