Quiet

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.

While all has been quiet on the storm front in the Gulf of Mexico over the past few weeks, recent revised forecasts are calling for more tropical storms and hurricanes than previously expected for the remainder of the 2005 Atlantic storm season.

In a quiet weekend market prelude to the beginning of June bidweek, prices fell in mostly moderate amounts Friday. However, OFOs declared for Saturday by both of California’s huge distributors (see Transportation Notes) had an impact felt throughout much of the West, where all of the declines of more than 20 cents were recorded.

The most significant futures event during the relatively quiet holiday week was the continuing rise in gas futures on Thursday despite an unexpected 20 Bcf storage injection reported by the Energy Information Administration. After the May futures contract posted less than a one-cent change for both Monday and Tuesday, the contract found upward momentum on Wednesday and Thursday, settling up a little more than 6 cents each day.

An absence of severe weather threats, lower industrial load over a weekend, and the screen’s previous-day quarter decline set the stage for further mostly moderate softening in a sedate Friday market. A small uptick in Tennessee Zone 6 ran contrary to losses at all other points ranging from less than a nickel to nearly 30 cents.

In what several traders noted was a quiet session as far as Thursdays go, natural gas futures chopped sideways yesterday as storage-related selling and weather-related buying were evenly matched.

Following Thursday’s 17-cent price slide, the natural gas futures market was quiet Friday as traders elected to play it safe ahead of the weekend. Bears scored early Friday by carving out a new nine-month low. However, short-covering ensued and succeeded in recouping the day’s losses. The October contract was held to a tight 9.5-cent range Friday, all of which was etched in the first 40 minutes of trading. It closed at $4.483, up a modest 1.2 cents for the session.

Trading for the last week of the August swing market and for September bidweek got off to quiet starts Monday. Mild bullishness reigned in next-day numbers at most points, with quotes ranging from flat to just over a nickel higher. Tiny dips were recorded at a few western points.

The past year has been relatively quiet for many North America independent producers, but with natural gas prices remaining high, many have begun to ramp up production across the continent and especially in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Although they are loathe to offer production projections going forward, positive results should show up by the end of the second quarter, executives said Tuesday at the UBS Warburg Energy Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.