Firmness

All points joined Monday in rebounding from weekend softness, but except for sizable transportation constraint-linked gains of 30 cents or so at the Southern California border, San Juan Basin and the Rockies, other advances were more moderate at about 15 cents or less.

The cash market continued to be bolstered by a strong June gas futures contract Monday, emerging from the weekend with remarkably consistent across-the-board gains from about a dime to nearly 35 cents. Upticks at a majority of points were in the 15-25 cents range.

A great majority of the cash market ranged from flat to nearly 20 cents higher Monday as traders watched a skyrocketing screen and heard a great deal of talk about nuclear plant outages. But CIG, Cheyenne Hub and Questar led Rockies/San Juan Basin declines sparked largely by a major one-day constraint on Rockies gas moving eastward and also by light weather load.

Sources attributed moderate gains in most of the cash market Thursday to storage buying, carryover effect from the screen’s previous-day increase of a little more than a dime and — yes, a little bit of weather, both hot and cold.

Buoyed mostly by storage demand, modest firmness continued to dominate eastern markets Tuesday, although a few points were flat and only Transco Zone 6 non-New York managed a gain of more than about a dime. Softness reigned in most of the West, which not coincidentally is the only region that was not drawing down storage in the last two Energy Information Administration reports.

Nearly all points continued to climb Wednesday as winter weather began to pay a return visit to northern market areas and parts of the West. However, widespread late price retreats and expectations of the demand slump that typically accompanies a long weekend had sources anticipating softness Thursday.

This week’s erosion of prices (not counting isolated pockets of firmness, mostly in the West) slowed to a crawl Thursday as further declines were limited to about 30 cents or less, and quite a few points (again, mostly in the West) registered moderate gains of up to about a quarter.

As expected, most points continued to soften by varying amounts Friday. Losses ranged from as little as about a dime to just over a dollar, with many gradations in between represented. The few upticks tended to be associated with the Midwest market, such as Chicago citygates, Dawn, and Northern Natural-Ventura.

Plunges in New England citygates and mild firmness in the Rockies constituted the extremes in an overall market Tuesday that saw most points range from flat to down about 20 cents. A solid majority of the declines were small at less than a dime.