The February aftermarket got launched Monday on a quiet note and with losses outweighing gains. Weather trends were toward moderation in several regions, although parts of the Southeast were still recovering from a weekend ice storm that had left thousands without power.
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Transportation Note
Gulf South pushed up the start of this week’s maintenance on its Index 8 segment in East Texas, originally set for 7 a.m. CST (see Daily GPI, Jan. 6), to Monday at 7 a.m. The work is still expected to last about 48 hours.
June Closes Out on Softer Note; No Rally in Sight
To no one’s surprise, swing prices for the last day of June kept falling Tuesday. The usual suspects were at work: overall mild weather with daily highs unable to struggle higher than the 80s virtually everywhere outside the desert Southwest and Florida, and energy futures weakness the day before that remained in force Tuesday.
May Aftermarket Closes Out on Much Softer Note
The slide that started Wednesday in cash prices got quite a bit steeper Thursday in trading done through the end of the month because of the Memorial Day holiday. Friday’s deals will be done for flows next Tuesday.
Cash Quotes Finish Week on a Rising Note
Buoyed by run-ups throughout the energy futures complex the day before and the stubborn refusal of wintry weather to exit the market stage in some areas, cash prices recorded across-the-board gains in Friday’s trading for weekend flows.
Transportation Note
Southern California Gas declared a high-linepack OFO for Saturday. Its utility neighbor to the north, Pacific Gas & Electric, did not issue an OFO despite projecting that linepack would bump up against its maximum target levels Sunday and Monday.
Transportation Notes
Northwest cautioned shippers Tuesday “to purchase adequate gas supplies and not to draft the pipeline during the upcoming weekend.” It went on to note that market-area weather had been cold for the previous few days, and that “extremely cold temperatures” were predicted to begin Sunday (Jan. 4). For last Tuesday’s gas day, withdrawals from Jackson Prairie storage were twice as high as scheduled nominations, Northwest said. If system drafting continues, “Northwest will be forced to evaluate customer-specific and/or general entitlements in order to stop any drastic decline in our Jackson Prairie balancing gas.”
Futures Grind Lower as Apprehension Over Weather Forecasts Mounts
Natural gas futures completed a topsy-turvy trading week on a down note Friday, pressured lower by light pre-holiday profit-taking. The January contract dropped 14 cents to close at $6.982.
Cash Makes Half-Hearted Effort to Rally, But Ends on Weak Note
Spot prices rose sharply early Tuesday as expected following Nymex’s wild 76.7-cent rise on Monday, but cash points managed only 30- to 45-cent increases on average and weakened toward the end of trading.
August Trading Closes on Moderately Softer Note
Wednesday’s swing market was almost a mirror image of the previous day. This time single-digit declines dominated the price table instead of the increases by largely similar amounts recorded on Tuesday. One trader said the mild softness on Wednesday is what he actually had expected for both days.