Anywhere

Cash prices reversed course at most locations Tuesday, slipping anywhere from a few cents to more than 20 cents, except at a number of western points that posted 10- to 26-cent gains, including Northwest Pipeline, Opal, CIG and Kern River, which reported low linepack. Trading ranges were extremely tight, coming in at 5-10 cents in many markets.

With no sign of bullish fundamentals anywhere to be found, October natural gas futures pushed lower again Friday to close at $4.627, down 15.4 cents on the day and 35.5 cents lower for the week.

The September aftermarket got off to a very weak start in most cases Thursday. Nearly all points plummeted by anywhere from 35 cents to 90 cents Thursday as cooling load continued to shrink and Wednesday’s screen dive of nearly 60 cents applied negative pressure on physical prices.

Only the two El Paso-San Juan pools and Tennessee Zone 6 in New England failed to continue rising Thursday. All other points were up anywhere from a nickel to a little more than half a dollar as the cash market derived support from a strong prior-day screen, another net weekly storage withdrawal being reported and high heat across the southern U.S. slowly spreading northward.

El Paso Corp. Production Company President Lisa Stewart said Thursday she has seen “no indication that we’ve got to shut-in production anywhere,” despite lower natural gas prices. El Paso’s $5.50/MMBtu “plan price” for natural gas provides “sustainability through the cycles,” she told investors and analysts at the Wachovia Securities Equity Conference.

Spot prices rose anywhere from a dime to a dollar on Monday largely in response to a cold front that is expected to drop eastern temperatures to below-normal levels from Chicago to Florida starting Tuesday and continuing through Thanksgiving.

Natural gas cash prices rebounded anywhere from a few cents to more than $1 on Wednesday after buyers came into the market to take advantage of the huge price declines earlier in the week that left the market as much as $3.00-4.60 lower than first-of-the-month indexes.

Moderating temperatures in the Midwest and parts of the Northeast caused most points to drop anywhere from about a nickel to a little more than a quarter in Thursday’s launch of the July aftermarket. But above normal temperatures forecast for Friday and Saturday in much of the West allowed many (though not all) points in that region to record fairly strong gains ranging from about 15 cent to around 35 cents.

With some exceptions in the West, May pricing began Friday anywhere from flat to as much as about a quarter above April-ending levels. Cold weather that had been supporting Rockies prices through Thursday was due to yield to thermometer levels 5-20 degrees above average over the weekend, and thus that region saw most of the losses, topped by dips of about 30 and 15 cents at the highly temperature-sensitive CIG and Cheyenne Hub points respectively.