Seem

There did not seem to be a lot of weather support except in much of the torrid desert Southwest, but mostly small price increases continued at a majority of points for a second day Wednesday. The cash market did have some positive guidance from the previous day’s 7.1-cent increase by prompt-month futures.

There didn’t seem to be enough weather-based demand — for either heating or cooling — to justify it, but prices were up fairly strongly across the board Monday. The cash market did derive minor support from the previous Friday’s 5.2-cent uptick by June futures and the restoration of industrial load from its usual weekend decline.

Even with strong financials and a stable stock price, San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) and its parent company, PG&E Corp., seem to run into trouble around every corner, and at the end of April it was looking for a new CEO and trying to regain the intangible of public trust.

Icy weather forecasts for Thursday extending into parts of the South didn’t seem to impress the cash market Wednesday as it recorded losses at all but one point (a flat Sumas), including multi-dollar declines at some Northeast points that had continued to soar a day earlier, and a whopping $11-plus plummet at the Florida citygate.

It would seem that a day with forecast lows in single digits and the teens in many parts of Western Canada and the northern half of the U.S., accompanied by mercury levels due to bottom out around freezing in northerly reaches of the South, should be sufficient to cause rising spot gas prices. But it wasn’t so Wednesday.

It might seem that the Eagle Ford and Marcellus shales are being developed at breakneck speed, but it’s important to remember that these are the early days in two resource plays that will be natural gas breadbaskets for the nation in the decades to come.

It might seem that the Eagle Ford and Marcellus shales are being developed at breakneck speed, but it’s important to remember that these are the early days in two resource plays that will be natural gas breadbaskets for the nation in the decades to come.

From all of the large double-digit gains throughout the cash market Tuesday, it would seem like: (a) a major hurricane had sprung up unexpectedly in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico production area, or (b) huge blizzards had begun raging throughout North America.

Things aren’t always what they seem. What starts as a natural gas play can become an oil/gas liquids play. Sometimes the best thing to do is circle back to your roots. But it’s important to always know where you are, especially when you’re in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.