Firming

The mild firming that had marked most trading in the first two days of this week switched to mild softening Wednesday. Temperature fundamentals remain benign in most regions. The screen slipped for the third day in a row, although Wednesday’s dip, like Tuesday’s, was small at only a couple of pennies or so. And traders are expecting another large storage injection report Thursday morning to whack another chunk out of the year-on-year deficit.

Despite some flat points here and there, the overall cash market continued to rise Thursday with gains that were mostly in single digits but reached nearly 15 cents in a few cases. And although a couple of sources confessed to seeing the weekend market as a tough call, majority sentiment looks for further price firmness Friday in spite of cold front forecasts for the Midwest and Northeast.

Flat numbers reigned across much of the market Tuesday, as a majority of points stayed within about a nickel up or down from unchanged. The gains tended to outweigh the losses, however, and most of the larger upticks occurred in the Rockies. Not coincidentally, the West remained the only market area experiencing severe summer heat.

Sizeable declines at New England points and small ones on a couple of Rockies pipes were the major exceptions to continued moderate bullishness in the rest of the cash market Thursday. Most points ranged from flat to about a quarter higher. Much like the day before, a majority of gains were in the teens.

Ignoring moderating weather conditions and softer energy futures, the cash market managed generally moderate gains at a majority of points Wednesday, with San Juan and Rockies prices seeing the largest advances. Several flat to slightly lower points were scattered among the price mix.

Despite only the most marginal firming of weather fundamentals and a softer screen during the morning, nearly all cash points ranged from flat to about a dime higher Tuesday. Most softening was fairly negligible except for double-digit drops at Sumas, Stanfield, Malin and intra-Alberta, which were due largely to cool Pacific Northwest weather, a NOVA tolerance change Sunday to 0/-20% and a constraint on PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest deliveries (see Transportation Notes).

Despite having considerably lighter air conditioning load than last week, the cash market ranged from flat to about a dime higher at nearly all points Monday. Most increases were fairly small, but Malin achieved one in the mid teens, while the day’s champion gainer of about 60 cents due a maintenance-related constraint was Cheyenne Hub. CIG recorded the only significant loss of more than a dime.

Thanks to impending colder weather in the major northern marketareas along with some extra boost from a rising screen, overallcash prices ranged from flat to about a nickel higher Thursday,with increases of 3-6 cents tending to occur most frequently.

The swing trading pattern immediately following Christmas didn’tseem very much different from the days preceding the holiday: agenerally softer market, with declines of up to a dime Monday atmost points, arrayed against conspicuously higher prices fordeliveries into the New York City area. One thing that did change,however, was generally flat numbers for the Rockies and California,markets that had participated in the overall weakness last week.