Finally

June natural gas futures on Tuesday wavered on price direction in early trading, but finally resolved to trade somewhat higher. After notching a low of $6.600 just after 11 a.m. EDT, the prompt month inched upward in the afternoon to record a high of $6.870 before closing at $6.746, up 5.1 cents on the day.

Following four days of impressive strength, cash prices finally succumbed Friday to dwindling weather-based load, a prior-day screen decline of 12.8 cents and the usual decline of industrial demand associated with a weekend. Large declines across the board ranged from about 20 cents to a little more than 60 cents.

After spending four days on the witness stand defending himself, former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling finally appeared to have had enough on Thursday. He angrily accused the government of “rewriting history” and of trying to pin the blame for the company’s collapse on “innocent people.”

Buying for storage injections finally proved unable to offset the retreat of weather-related load Wednesday, and the result was falling cash prices across the board.

Winter looks like it will finally make its debut in earnest this week, more than a month after the season’s official start date. With cold temperatures expected to blanket much of the country, the potential impact on the natural gas industry has people wondering how long the cold will stay and just how cold it will be.

Winter looks like it will finally make its debut in earnest next week, more than a month after the season’s official start date. With cold temperatures expected to blanket much of the country next week, the potential impact on the natural gas industry has people wondering how long the cold will stay and just how cold it will be.

While February may finally bring some cold weather, according to the latest forecasts, the natural gas futures market is still significantly overvalued, consulting firm Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) said in its latest Monthly Gas Update. EEA expects Henry Hub gas prices to moderate from 2005’s record high average of $8.80 and end this year at only $7.50/MMBtu. The 11-month strip of 2006 futures prices ended the day on Friday at $9.126.

Cash prices finally faced up to the reality of weak fundamentals Friday with across the board plunges. Many points fell more than a dollar as moderate weather, brimming storage coffers, pipeline OFOs, prior-day screen softness and the usual weekend drop in industrial load ganged up on a market that had been mostly rising in the previous three days with little visible means of support.

About a month after the official start of fall, there is finally enough seasonal weather showing up to give some fundamental justification to price rebounds at nearly all points Monday. Tropical Storm Alpha showed up over the weekend but was given no chance at all of approaching the Gulf of Mexico.