Meteoric

Pausing to take stock of Thursday’s meteoric rise in April natural gas futures, tuckered-out traders on Friday traded in a slim $9.320 to $9.405 range before pushing the contract to close at $9.366, down 7.7 cents from Thursday’s close but 17.3 cents higher than the previous Friday’s finish.

November natural gas futures traders stood aside Friday as all eyes continued to focus on the meteoric rise in crude futures. While prompt-month natural gas closed at $7.218, up 3 pennies from Thursday and 17.7 cents higher than the previous week, December crude reached a high of $92/bbl before closing out at a record high $91.86/bbl, up $1.40 from Thursday.

Prices continued to rise at nearly all points Wednesday, but retreats of up to about 15 cents at a couple of Rockies points interrupted to some extent the meteoric rise that the regional market has seen since its latest crash last Thursday. The 37.7-cent spike by November futures on Tuesday had a lot to do with the cash strength, but it was supplemented by concerns about whether a low-pressure area in the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) might affect any production and whether a recently identified La Nina event might result in a colder than normal winter.

Apparently the screen’s meteoric rise of more than a dollar over the previous two days, culminating in Tuesday’s all-time intraday and daily settlement records for a prompt month contract, wasn’t all that impressive to cash traders Wednesday. Nor was heating load staying fairly heavy across northern market areas despite prospects for a bit of moderation from earlier in the week.

One day after natural gas futures traders put in a meteoric trading session resulting in a spot month record settle of $14.338, the November contract, which expires Thursday, used Wednesday to teeter back and forth from positive to negative territory. Ultimately, the prompt month ended up shedding some of Tuesday’s gains by closing 29.8 cents lower at $14.04.

While an outright bearish natural gas storage report was needed to stem the recent meteoric rise in futures prices, traders received no such help Thursday morning as the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a slightly bullish 43 Bcf injection for the week ended Aug. 5.

After its meteoric rise from a July 25 low of $7.185 to a Monday high of $8.870, September natural gas futures decided to put in a rare and relatively quiet day of trading on Tuesday.

Staying strong at the end of a meteoric week, July natural gas futures kept pushing higher Friday, reaching a high of $7.73 before settling at $7.69, up 7.7 cents on the day but a whopping 75.8 cents higher than last week’s settle.

Eric van der Walde, who led the meteoric rise in energy marketing and trading at American Electric Power (AEP) only to see the entire sector collapse in less than a year, announced his resignation Thursday. AEP decided earlier this month to limit its energy trading activities, redirecting its business strategies toward its traditional generation assets (see Daily GPI, Oct. 11).