Harsh

Harsh winter weather, as well as routine U.S. nuclear plant maintenance exacerbated by Japan’s plant outages, have lifted U.S. natural gas markets but it’s not expected to last through the year, analysts said last week.

Despite harsh winter weather in North America, customer demand in North America’s unconventional plays lifted Schlumberger Ltd.’s first quarter profits, as well as those of Weatherford International Ltd., the companies said Thursday.

Despite harsh winter weather in North America, customer demand in North America’s unconventional plays lifted Schlumberger Ltd.’s first quarter profits, as well as those of Weatherford International Ltd., the companies said last week.

With a modest (but expected to be brief) respite from harsh cold creeping into the forecasts for some areas, price advances slowed considerably at most points Tuesday and the formerly ultra-strong Northeast market was in wide retreat, with a few citygates seeing dollar-plus losses.

With the Midwest already several days into a bout of harsh winter weather and the Northeast about to rejoin it big-time Wednesday (along with the South to a lesser extent), it was hardly surprising to have prices rising at most points Tuesday. Northeast citygate spikes led the overall uprising as the region, after a brief respite Tuesday from a frigid and snowy weekend, was due to see lows plunge into the teens at most locations Wednesday (the Buffalo forecast was for zero).

A large majority of points rose Thursday in response to harsh winter weather either already in place or about to return. But despite a cold front moving through Friday, the Northeast forecast wasn’t cold enough to prevent losses of up to about 45 cents at regional citygates. New York City deliveries fell about 35 cents as the Big Apple is slated to have temperatures peak around a quite unseasonable 50 degrees Friday (but the low will be sub-freezing).

Due to the harsh winter weather in February and early March that has led to significant withdrawals from natural gas storage, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its Short-Term Energy Outlook for March has raised its projections for gas spot prices this year and next.

Due to the harsh winter weather in February and early March that has led to significant withdrawals from natural gas storage, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its Short-Term Energy Outlook for March has raised its projections for gas spot prices this year and next.

The early-week bear market that resulted primarily from forecasts of a midweek break from harsh winter weather in some areas proved to be short-lived, at least in eastern markets. Prices rebounded from about a nickel to nearly 30 cents Wednesday at most points in the East as arctic air masses were predicted to bring sub-zero wind chills to the Midwest and Plains states Thursday and continue on into the Northeast and much of the South.