Failing

After failing to break below support in each of the past three trading sessions, natural gas futures turned higher Tuesday as traders covered short positions on constructive weather outlooks and ahead of fresh storage data due out Thursday morning. The August contract finished at $2.863, up 7.9 cents for the session but only 0.3 cents above its $2.86 opening trade. At 105,524, estimated volume was heavy for the session.

After failing to break below support in each of the past three trading sessions, natural gas futures turned higher Tuesday as traders covered short positions on constructive weather outlooks and ahead of fresh storage data due out Thursday morning. The August contract finished at $2.863, up 7.9 cents for the session but only 0.3 cents above its $2.86 opening trade. At 105,524, estimated volume was heavy for the session.

After failing to locate a purchaser for Canadian-based energy trader Engage Energy, Duke Energy confirmed last week that it has decided to close down the division and consolidate some of its operations. The Canadian natural gas and power marketing operation was a division of Westcoast Energy, which Duke purchased in March (see NGI, March 11).

After twice failing to break to a new seven-week daily continuation chart high, natural gas futures tumbled lower in the last 75 minutes of trading Thursday as commercial and local traders took profits notched during the bull run of the last 10 days. The April contract was the hardest hit by the late sell-off, giving back 7 cents for the session to close at $2.357. The out months slipped as well but by a lesser degree, which served to widen the market’s forward carry premium.

After failing to sustain a move above Wednesday’s highs, natural gas futures tumbled lower into the close yesterday as traders took another crack at the psychologically important $2.00 mark. The February contract finished at $2.048, down 2.8 cents for the session and just above its freshly-etched low at $2.025. There was some bullish encouragement, however, from the March and April contracts, which managed to buck the trend and post modest gains for the day.

After failing to test support in the mid $2.90s following a lower open Wednesday morning, natural gas futures contracts worked their way modestly higher in the afternoon as traders elected to look past another robust storage build to focus on hot weather and technical concerns. The September contract led the advance, rising 6.5 cents to close at $3.036. Estimated volume echoed the market’s tentative nature as only 60,979 contracts changed hands.

After failing to move through Monday’s $3.40 high, natural gas futures checked lower yesterday, as traders liquidated longs amid waning tropical storm concerns and ahead of potentially bearish storage data to be released today. Although modest advances were seen in the afternoon, losses sustained earlier in the day were more sizeable, leaving September with a 5.7-cent decline to finish at $3.296.

Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) violated its tariff in failing to provide 227 MW of short-term capacity to Idaho Power, when the capacity was availabile and the Idaho company was next in the bidding queue, FERC said in an order issued Monday (EL01-66).

After failing to sustain a fresh 10-day high notched yesterday morning, natural gas futures tumbled lower Monday as traders once again eschewed the long side of the market for more than a couple hours. The prompt August contract finished at $3.153, 6.5 cents lower for the day and 18.2 cents off its high water mark for the session. The losses were also seen in the out months, which, for the most part, experienced more severe losses. The winter strip declined 8.1 cents to $3.867 and the 12-month strip dropped a cool 8 cents to $3.619.