Shrug

January natural gas futures inched higher Tuesday as traders saw a market that looks to have put in a bottom but was unable to shrug off a faltering oil market. January rose 1.3 cents to $5.579, and February gained 2 cents to $5.632. January crude oil fell $1.64 to $42.07/bbl.

May natural gas futures were able to shrug off potentially bearish news and closed at a new all-time high Wednesday for the price advance that began in December. The May contract rose 17.4 cents to $10.781 and the June contract added 18.3 cents to settle at $10.946. June crude oil gained 23 cents to $118.30/bbl.

Fulfilling NGI sources’ predictions, the cash market was able to shrug off Tuesday’s significant softness and post rebounds at all points Wednesday (see Daily GPI, Aug. 10). Increasing power generation load in the Northeast more than offset cooling trends in the Midwest, and high temperatures continued to dominate the weather picture in the South and most of the West.

The consensus Tuesday had seemed to be that a new cash price rally was unlikely this week, if not through the end of the month, because of a trio of bearish influences: mild weather in most regions, great comfort with current storage levels, and the lack of any tropical storm activity that could possibly disrupt offshore production.

As NGI sources had predicted, residual support from Thursday’s screen gain of nearly 16 cents (along with spikes in the rest of the energy futures complex) proved sufficient to outweigh weekend losses of cooling load in the Northeast and Midwest. The result was upticks ranging from about 3 cents to almost 15 cents in most of Friday’s cash market, although flat to moderately lower numbers were recorded at several Northeast citygates and western points.

The June natural gas futures contract was able to shrug off its second straight negative open Wednesday as buyers entered the fray when it became apparent the market wasn’t going to fill in a key chart gap from late April. The June contract finished at $5.660, up 9.2 cents for the session and 20 cents above its morning low. Gains were even larger in the July contract, which rumbled 10.2 cents higher to $5.735.

In a typical display of its ability to shrug off undeniably bullish information, natural gas futures turned lower Wednesday afternoon following the announcement that a whopping 156 Bcf was pulled from underground storage facilities last week. After surpassing its Jan. 17 high of $2.38 to reach a new 5-week high at $2.41, the March contract plummeted 16.5 cents in 25 minutes to finish at $2.245, down 6 cents for the session.

What do you get when you mix a bull market near its all-timehigh with a potential tropical storm and a large storage refill? Ifyou answered one heck of a 24-hour trading period then you were notalone yesterday as natural gas futures traders experienced atrading day that saw four distinct buying surges and onegut-wrenching sell-off.

After a brief uptick during the Wednesday night Access tradingsession, natural gas futures continued lower yesterday at the NewYork Mercantile Exchange and settled below key support levels. Julyfinished at $2.285, after carving out a $2.27 low early Thursdaymorning. Estimated volume of 95,938 was almost double that ofMonday and Tuesday.