Downside

After the rally stalled on Monday as traders instead tested downside support, natural gas futures bulls on Tuesday once again pressed the upside, scoring a 14.7-cent gain to close the day’s regular session at $4.449. Commodities on the whole showed impressive strength with June crude futures picking up 35 cents to close at $58.85/bbl.

Mixed price movement Wednesday leaned mostly to the downside as overall heating load was forecast to remain relatively light for late February. However, there were more small gains here and there than on Tuesday, signaling that the March futures increase of 13.9 cents that day may have had some supportive impact on Wednesday’s cash market.

Wednesday’s price movement was mixed but biased to the downside. Continued substantive heating load kept most points firmer in the Gulf Coast and Northeast, but a string of futures losses coupled with already generally mild weather in the West and the approach of warmer conditions in the Midcontinent/Midwest had numbers mostly falling in those regions.

The market was almost evenly divided between mostly small gains and losses Tuesday but leaning slightly to the downside — even more so if one gives extra weight to the huge declines in the Rockies that took quotes as low as 40 cents and left a couple of points averaging less than a dollar. Much of the U.S. is in a transition period from unusual recent heat to temperatures more befitting the approach of mid-October.

There’s a downside to being a top energy marketer — everyone wants to hire your employees. BP plc CEO Tony Hayward said last week the company has lost its fair share of energy traders to investment banks in recent months, but the company will not overpay to retain talent.

There’s a downside to being a top energy marketer — everyone wants to hire your employees. BP plc CEO Tony Hayward said Tuesday the company has lost its fair share of energy traders to investment banks in recent months, but he said the company will not overpay to retain talent.

Unconventional natural gas resources — coalbed methane, gas shale and tight sandstone — have buoyed North American production, but on the downside, production per well is lower, thus raising unit costs, which means that continued higher gas prices are needed to maintain output on a flat trajectory, according to a joint study by energy consultants Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and IHS.

Unconventional natural gas resources — coalbed methane, gas shale and tight sandstone — have buoyed North American production, but on the downside, production per well is lower, thus raising unit costs, which means that continued higher gas prices are needed to maintain output on a flat trajectory, according to a joint study by energy consultants Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and IHS.

Following a strong launch of the May aftermarket on Monday, things had settled down a lot Tuesday. Price movement was mixed but leaned heavily toward the downside. Growing cooling load across the southern half of the U.S. was starting to flag slightly in some sections, proving to be insufficient at this point to sustain price firmness, while mild weather meant very little weather-based load at all in northern market areas.