Barely

Following Thursday’s significant plunge lower, May natural gas futures on Friday kept the trend going, barely skipping a beat. After repeated attacks on support levels in the low to mid $7.20s, the prompt month ended up settling at $7.242, down 12.4 cents on the day and 50.7 cents lower than the previous Friday’s close.

Much of the cash market emulated the March futures contract Thursday — barely budging from where it stood the day before. Outside of some sizeable drops at Northeast citygates, not many points ventured any farther than about a nickel up or down from flat. Weather turning milder again in several areas after going frigid at midweek was cited for the failure of most prices to extend Wednesday’s gains.

In one of the least volatile trading days in the cash market in recent memory, spot prices barely moved on Veteran’s Day, with many points inching up only a nickle while a few others fell a couple pennies. However, the cash market was a striking contrast to the futures market on Nymex, where the December contract collapsed 44 cents to $7.236 in response to falling crude oil and heating oil prices.

In one of the least volatile trading days in the cash market in recent memory, spot prices barely moved on Veteran’s Day, with many points inching up only a nickle while a few others fell a couple pennies. However, the cash market was a striking contrast to the futures market on Nymex, where the December contract collapsed 44 cents to $7.236 in response to falling crude oil and heating oil prices.

After dipping into the high $5.20s just before noon EST, the natural gas futures market rebounded Tuesday in concert with a spiking crude oil market. However, natural gas was unable to keep pace with the 3% gain notched by its hydrocarbon brethren and ultimately failed to match its own $5.50 high from Monday.

With the exception of a couple of flat Midwest citygates, prices ranged from barely lower to down more than 30 cents at the Southern California border Friday. Sources cited new forecasts indicating less severe cold weather over the weekend and this week as the chief factor in market weakness.

With the exception of a few scattered flat to barely lower points, nearly all the market was on the same softening page Friday, showing the most unity of price movement since the previous week. Lack of heating load in many areas, the delayed impact of a bearish storage report Thursday and the demand dropoff typical of a weekend produced overall declines ranging from about a nickel to more than 40 cents but concentrated in the teens.

With a few flat to barely higher points thrown into the mix, most of the cash market was mildly softer Thursday. A majority of declines were capped at a little more than a nickel, although falls of about 12-15 cents were recorded at scattered points such as Texas Eastern M-3, San Juan-Blanco and the PG&E citygate.

Barely visible in this time of extreme budget constraints, the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority (power authority), will reemerge in Sacramento later this month to set the stage for establishing a 22% electricity reserve target for the state next month in one of its first rulemakings as an neophyte state agency spawned by the now long-gone electricity crisis of 2000-2001. One quarter to one half of the new target would come from demand-side management, according to a draft proposal.