Seemed

On the verge of Tuesday’s official start of winter, it seemed like the season had already gotten off to a strong start last week but was tending to recede a bit. However, except for some fairly big slides from last week’s $10-plus heights in the Northeast, most points registered moderate increases Monday.

Prices rose again at nearly all points Thursday, but it seemed increasingly likely that the current week will not run the table with firming numbers. Several flat to a couple of cents lower locations broke the preceding string of flat to higher quotes across the board; except in the Northeast, Thursday’s gains were considerably smaller than those preceding them; and — again except in the Northeast — modest warming trends were returning several areas to fall-like conditions after a temporary touch of winter.

Chevron Corp., one of the few major oil companies without a visible presence in the North American shale plays, on Tuesday made up for lost time in a deal to buy Atlas Energy Inc. for an estimated $4.3 billion.

Apparently any “storm hype,” which seemed to help buoy the market earlier in the week, was getting totally dismissed as prices sank at all but one point Friday, most often by double-digit amounts. Instead, the near-imminent diminution of most remaining cooling load and the weekend factor of considerably lower industrial demand were more persuasive to traders in sending cash prices lower.

Normally a tropical storm aimed at the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) production area is a bullish development, but traders seemed to pay it and forecasts of Southern highs in the 100-degree area little heed as most prices were slightly softer Friday.

While sizzling temperatures sometimes north of 100 degrees cooked much of the East for a third consecutive day on Wednesday, the bullish news seemed to be lost on natural gas futures traders as August futures retreated for much of the day.

Front-month natural gas futures values reached almost a three-month low Monday as traders seemed resigned to the fact that the winter heating season — and its ability to draw down storage — are quickly running out of time. April futures recorded a low of $4.670 just after 12:30 p.m. EST before closing out the day’s session at $4.680, down 13.3 cents from Friday’s finish. The last time a front-month contract traded lower was back on Dec. 7, 2009, when the January 2010 contract notched a low of $4.644.

Front-month natural gas futures values reached almost a three-month low Monday as traders seemed resigned to the fact that the winter heating season — and its ability to draw down storage — are quickly running out of time. April futures recorded a low of $4.670 just after 12:30 p.m. EST before closing out the day’s session at $4.680, down 13.3 cents from Friday’s finish. The last time a front-month contract traded lower was back on Dec. 7, 2009, when the January 2010 contract notched a low of $4.644.

Most points stayed close to flat Tuesday in a cash market that seemed to have trouble deciding how to respond to varying weather and futures influences.