Screen

Buffeted once again by a screen plunge the day before and still finding weather-related demand hard to come by, the cash market continued to see prices fall in most cases Friday. However, flat to nearly a dime higher numbers at the Southern California border and a few Midcontinent/Midwest points averted a clean sweep of softness.

Following four days of impressive strength, cash prices finally succumbed Friday to dwindling weather-based load, a prior-day screen decline of 12.8 cents and the usual decline of industrial demand associated with a weekend. Large declines across the board ranged from about 20 cents to a little more than 60 cents.

Following two days of mostly higher quotes, the cash market acknowledged the continuing bearish nature of weather, screen and storage factors — supplemented by the extra decline of industrial load associated with a long holiday weekend — by falling from a couple of pennies to around 40 cents at a solid majority of points Friday. Westcoast Station 2 was a special case in plunging about C80 cents.

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.

Despite temperatures remaining well below normal across most of the country, natural gas cash prices followed the Nymex futures screen lower Tuesday, with many points dipping between 50 cents and $1. The biggest drops were in the Northeast and Gulf Coast regions with smaller declines in the Midcontinent, Midwest and West.

Forecasts of moderating weekend weather, a prior-day screen plunge, a bearish storage report and the dip in industrial load that is typical of a weekend ganged up on the cash market Friday and forced prices lower by triple-digit amounts at all points. Despite the big weekend losses, prices were up overall for the week due to the hefty gains that dominated the first four days.

Cash prices disconnected once again Friday from “following the screen,” but this time instead of strengthening after prior-day futures weakness as they had done on Tuesday and Wednesday, most points dropped despite Thursday’s 17-cent Nymex gain.

Based on prior-day screen strength and continuing limits on available supply from the Gulf Coast, most points in the Gulf Coast, Midcontinent/Midwest and Appalachian markets were in rebound mode Friday. But overall price movement was mixed, with several points in the above areas along with the Northeast and much of the West flat to down as much as a little over a half dollar.

Buoyed by two previous days of substantial screen strength and also by forecasts of hotter weather returning to northern and western market areas by the time the current workweek has begun, weekend prices moved higher at a large majority of points Friday. Nearly all of the declines — mostly small but reaching a quarter in one case — occurred in the West, but the region also recorded several sizeable advances.