Descent

March natural gas futures continued Thursday’s descent Friday in lackluster trading as the contract could only carve out less than a 6-cent range. Traders noted continuing pressure on the front end of the board from 2012 contracts, and others cited the likelihood of moderate temperatures this summer. At the end of the day March futures fell 7.6 cents to $3.910 and April skidded 6.0 cents to $3.977. March crude oil dropped $1.15 to $85.58/bbl.

Natural gas prices continued their descent last month, and they could fall below current projections before colder weather swoops in to lend seasonal support, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) observed in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, released last Wednesday. Oversupply and a weak economy featured in last month’s statistics, with power generation gains on competitive prices a bright spot for the gas industry.

Natural gas prices continued their descent last month, and they could fall below current projections before colder weather swoops in to lend seasonal support, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) observed in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, released Wednesday. Oversupply and a weak economy featured in last month’s statistics, with power generation gains on competitive prices a bright spot for the gas industry.

The July natural gas futures contract continued its descent Tuesday, dropping 17.1 cents to close at $7.519. While the day’s activity brought the week’s combined losses to 39.9 cents, some market participants were quick to note that the trading range of the last few months is still intact, adding that scaled-down buying is already evident.

Cash prices resumed their descent at all points Thursday following Wednesday’s moderate rally. Recent screen weakness, an increasingly bearish storage situation and the fact that the return of colder weather is still leaving temperatures above normal in many areas weighed down the spot market.

While Northeast citygates continued a rapid descent from last week’s stratospheric price levels, the rest of the market had several flat to higher points Monday but mostly saw moderate declines of up to a little more than 20 cents. The larger non-Northeast losses tended to cluster in the Midcontinent. Transco Station 45 was something of an anomaly with a 40-cent gain.

Cash quotes continued to fall Tuesday, but the declines were notably smaller than on the day before. The slide was remarkably consistent across all geographic areas with nearly every point down between a nickel and about a dime; only a few in the Gulf Coast and Midcontinent/Midwest fell by as much as 13-19 cents.

Entering a period of milder weather and spurred by the previous day’s screen loss of nearly 22 cents, prices kept falling across the board Wednesday. However, the decline pace slowed considerably. Wednesday’s drops ranged as high as about 30 cents in the Northeast, but were in single digits at a slight majority of points.

This week’s erosion of prices (not counting isolated pockets of firmness, mostly in the West) slowed to a crawl Thursday as further declines were limited to about 30 cents or less, and quite a few points (again, mostly in the West) registered moderate gains of up to about a quarter.