Cooling

The cash market bowed to a general lack of significant heating or cooling load and only minor flooding disruptions of production in South Louisiana in retreating to mostly near-flat numbers and several small losses Tuesday, although moderate upticks were recorded at a majority of points.

There didn’t seem to be enough weather-based demand — for either heating or cooling — to justify it, but prices were up fairly strongly across the board Monday. The cash market did derive minor support from the previous Friday’s 5.2-cent uptick by June futures and the restoration of industrial load from its usual weekend decline.

Mild softness dominated the cash market Tuesday. There was still a little bit of both heating load in Canada and the northern U.S. and cooling load in the southern tier of states, but neither demand source was strong enough to support spot prices. The previous day’s decline of 2.3 cents by May futures, which will expire Wednesday, was another slightly bearish influence for the physical market.

It failed to surprise any traders when prices fell at all but one point Friday. Despite cooling trends in the Midwest and South, moderation dominated the general weather outlook; the latest storage withdrawal report reinforced the perception of plentiful inventories (especially when the Producing region had an unusually early net injection); prompt-month futures had fallen 4 cents on the previous day; and the decline of industrial load during a weekend was a minor bearish factor as usual.

There was a slightly increased threat of a tropical storm reaching the Gulf of Mexico, a bit of residual cooling load concentrated in the Texas area, and several spotty patches of overnight cold scattered throughout the northern half of the U.S. and Canada. But the price rebound that had been growing stronger from Tuesday through Wednesday still faltered Thursday.

With cooling load sinking rapidly, especially in the South, prices fell at nearly all points Wednesday. The previous day’s 2.9-cent decline by September futures as they entered their three-day countdown to expiration also contributed to cash softness.

La Nina conditions — an unusual cooling of ocean surface temperatures off the western coast of South America that is believed to have significant effects on North American weather patterns — continue to develop across the equatorial Pacific, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

La Nina conditions — an unusual cooling of ocean surface temperatures off the western coast of South America that is believed to have significant effects on North American weather patterns — continue to develop across the equatorial Pacific, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

A week of firmness in most of the cash market came to an end Wednesday as slight cooling trends in some areas combined with a prior-day screen loss of 9.3 cents to push prices lower at a large majority of points.