Chiefly

Effective immediately, a competitive market for compressed natural gas (CNG) — chiefly as a new rival against oil products — is open for business across most of Nova Scotia. And it’s Eastern Canada’s chief oil refiner, Irving Oil, that will be delivering the trucked gas to coastal fish processors, hospitals, universities and other large commercial users as early as next year.

Chiefly reflecting the previous Friday’s 11.5-cent rebound by October futures and the return of industrial load from its usual weekend hiatus, prices rose at a large majority of points Monday.

Further price increases occurred at virtually all points Tuesday. The previous day’s September futures surge of 37.8 cents was considered chiefly responsible for the cash strength. However, modest warming trends in sections of the South, along with continued above-normal temperatures in the Northeast and scorching readings from Texas-Oklahoma through the desert Southwest, contributed a substantive amount of cooling load to overall gas demand.

At least one source was convinced that resolving end-of-month imbalances had been chiefly responsible for Wednesday’s price gains across the board, because the cash market switched to losses at all points Thursday with little overall change in weak weather fundamentals. The launch of the May aftermarket got an additional negative nudge from Wednesday’s decline of 3.7 cents by June futures as they assumed prompt-month status.

As a marketer had predicted, prices were softer at a large majority of points Thursday due chiefly to a 35.4-cent plunge by the expiring December futures contract the day before and milder weather returning to the South. Northeast citygates, where temperatures are falling and will bottom out around freezing or lower Friday, saw nearly all of the flat to about 75 cents higher exceptions to the overall market trend.

An expiration-day screen dive of more than 30 cents and light heating demand because of mild weather were chiefly responsible for falling prices across the board Thursday. Of course, the long-established conditions of a major storage surplus and the absence of a major hurricane threat to Gulf of Mexico production in a rapidly waning hurricane season also acted as a drag on the market.

In a somewhat surprising move attributable chiefly to the screen’s Thursday afternoon turnaround into positive territory (and aided by some colder weekend weather in parts of the Midwest, Northeast and South), cash prices saw hefty increases at all points Friday.

Post-weekend cash prices leaned chiefly toward the upside in a mixed performance Monday. A few scattered points in the East joined most western markets in mild softening, while the rest of the market ranged from flat to as much as about 30 cents higher in the Northeast. A majority of gains were less than a dime.