Correctly

Producers that ply shale gas plays could someday benefit from increased insight into shale reservoirs courtesy of researchers at the University of Oklahoma (OU).

As a marketer had correctly predicted, the cash market was unable to sustain Tuesday’s brief burst of firmness and was down at nearly all points Wednesday. The previous day’s 4.1-cent drop by September futures played a minor bearish role, of course, but it was primarily the subpar late-summer cooling load and continuing warnings about storage facilities soon being unable to accommodate further injections in many locations (see related story) that drove most quotes downward.

A marketer had correctly predicted Monday (see Daily GPI, April 7) that the screen softness that day would outweigh any remaining midweek heating load and drive Tuesday’s cash prices lower. But while he looked for mostly modest declines, a large majority of them were in double digits.

A marketer had correctly predicted Tuesday that futures strength that day would jump-start a rally in the overall cash market Wednesday. But the big jumps at nearly all points Wednesday seemed out of proportion to the previous day’s 16.1-cent Nymex gain, especially when no major heat waves or tropical storm concerns were in sight.

Successful natural gas futures trading often depends on correctly determining what “story” the market is telling on a particular day, according to Sandy “Trot” Goldfarb, a 20-plus-year trading veteran. Speaking at NGI’s Natural Gas Futures Prices Workshop at the New York Mercantile Exchange last week, Trot said the plot of recent price movements indicates that there could be more room to the upside in this market.

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC last Tuesday ruled that FERC acted correctly when it rejected a rate settlement that was supported by the majority of Equitrans LP’s shippers in favor of a preexisting settlement that was backed by non-shipper producers.

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC on Tuesday ruled that FERC acted correctly when it rejected a rate settlement that was supported by the majority of Equitrans LP’s shippers in favor of a prior settlement that was backed by non-shipper producers.

As sources had correctly predicted, the market took its price cues Tuesday from the previous afternoon’s screen gain instead of continuing general weakness in fundamentals. The result was double-digit increases between about a dime and a little more than 20 cents at most points. The notable contrary position was in the Rockies, where flat to moderately lower numbers prevailed.

Traders correctly assumed prices would keep dropping Thursday,but many likely were surprised by how much the overall downtrendslowed. Except for some sizeable declines in the Rockies/PacificNorthwest, most points fell by about a nickel or less, and a fewregistered flat to up a smidgen.