Finish

Support at $4 held up once again on Tuesday as April natural gas futures notched a low of $4.058 before rebounding to close at $4.130, up 5.1 cents from Monday’s finish.

The market faltered at the finish line of trying to achieve a full week of advancing prices at essentially all points. In spite of rising weekend temperatures in the Midwest, the previous day’s dive of 29.9 cents by September futures following a report of an above-expectations storage injection was able to induce double-digit declines at all but one point Friday. The typical weekend fallback of industrial load was an additional, albeit minor, bearish factor.

Demand weakness has forced domestic natural gas producers to lay down rigs at a quick clip, but inventories still may finish the 2009 injection season with 3.9 Tcf in storage, Barclays Capital energy analysts said last week. Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings is no longer optimistic about a rebound in gas prices this year, and late Thursday the credit ratings agency cut its 2009 base case price deck for gas to $4.25/Mcf (Henry Hub) because of the protracted global economic slump.

Demand weakness has forced domestic natural gas producers to lay down rigs at a quick clip, but inventories still may finish the 2009 injection season with 3.9 Tcf in storage, Barclays Capital energy analysts said in a report this week.

Coming off Thursday’s near 35-cent drubbing, July natural gas futures rebounded on Friday but failed to finish the week north of $13. The prompt-month contract traded between $12.967 and $13.185 on Friday before closing the regular session at $12.994, up 13.3 cents from Thursday and 36.9 cents higher than the previous week’s close.

July natural gas futures struggled to make it to the “plus” column Tuesday, but in spite of the firm finish short-term traders are anticipating a period of weakness before any further market advance. At the close July added 1.9 cents to $12.952 and August tacked on 1.8 cents to $13.055. July crude oil skidded 60 cents to $134.01/bbl.

One day ahead of expiration, April natural gas futures pushed higher on Wednesday, reaching a high of $9.650 before closing out the day at $9.572, up 15.3 cents from Tuesday’s finish. However, the gains in gas futures were overshadowed by May crude, which shot $4.68 higher on the day to close at $105.90/bbl.

Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee pledged to finish markup of the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill late Wednesday, even if it meant voting out the remainder of the 180 amendments that were being considered en bloc.

November natural gas futures reached a peak of $6.985 on Friday before trickling to a low of $6.860 and settling at $6.870, down 4.9 cents from Thursday’s close. The week’s finish was 12 cents lower than the contract’s previous week’s close of $6.990.