Quite

It hadn’t reached the southern tier of states or Mid-Atlantic quite yet, but wintry conditions or a reasonable facsimile dominated the weather picture Wednesday and forecasts for the next few days in the rest of the U.S. and Canada. The cash market responded with major gains that were as small as 15-30 cents in most of the West but hit 35-70 cents or so throughout the East.

Sharply higher numbers Tuesday in both the physical and futures markets left quite a few cash traders puzzled, since they were seeing precious little fundamental support for rising prices.

Quite a few market observers were perplexed by the sudden sharp increase in natural gas futures prices Thursday after the EIA reported another relatively large weekly storage injection of 78 Bcf. The 16-cent increase in futures was even more surprising in light of the apparent discrepancy between EIA’s weekly estimated storage numbers and the actual storage numbers from EIA’s monthly data for earlier this year.

While noting that the figures may differ quite considerably from the final numbers that will be reported on July 29, BP on Wednesday released a trading update that provided an overview of the revenue and trading conditions it experienced during the second quarter ending June 30, 2003.

With many areas turning quite mild for early January and some doubt surfacing about the severity of a predicted return of winter storms later this week, cash prices were flat to down about 35 cents Monday. The common range for most declines was between about a dime and a quarter.

The market recorded quite a few small to moderate gains Friday, primarily in the West and Northeast, but most weekend prices ranged from flat to as much as about 20 cents lower. The general softness was attributed to fairly moderate weather in most of the East, typically lower demand over a weekend, and the residual effect of the previous day’s screen plunge.

Speculative energy trading is history for American Electric Power (AEP), which said Thursday that the company will instead focus on asset-based energy trading and marketing geographically — wherever it has facilities — becoming more conservative, more cost efficient, more cash-wise and less growth oriented.

Last week’s reminder that winter actually can be quite cold at times (a fact that some traders might have forgotten during yet another mild heating season) was starting to fade as scheduled Friday in parts of the East, but severe weather was either tightening or reasserting its grip from the Rockies through the Midcontinent/Midwest. The result was mildly higher weekend pricing in the still-frigid regions, while flatness prevailed in most of the rest of the market. Northeast and Florida citygates sustained the only significant losses as they continued retreating from midweek spikes.

Even as the natural gas storage situation in the United States remains quite healthy, UBS Warburg analyst Ron Barone said he expects gas prices to go up and demand to go unsupplied in the not so distant future, due to dwindling reserves and a decline in drill rig utilization.