Shrugged

Natural gas futures traders Friday shrugged off the threat of tropical development over the extended, three-day weekend and sent prices to their lowest levels of the recent down move. At $5.468, the October futures contract was down 16.7 cents on the day and 27.1 cents lower for the week.

Traders on Thursday shrugged off the news that 115 Bcf was removed from underground storage last week as the number — while large for this time of year — was already factored into the market. As a result, April natural gas futures dropped below $7 once again to settle at $6.959, down 12.4 cents from Wednesday’s close.

Taking a break from following crude’s recent mad dash higher, May natural gas futures on Friday shrugged off June crude’s enormous gains to explore slightly lower levels. Reaching a low of $7.830 on the session, prompt-month natural gas went on to settle at $7.981, down 8.3 cents on the day, but 84.6 cents higher than the previous week’s close, which occurred Thursday, April 13 in observation of Good Friday.

In a market that seems to be able to dismiss negative influences almost at will, cash prices shrugged off the previous day’s 70.6-cent screen drop and still-limited amounts of heating load to turn in a mixed performance Tuesday. Many points were little changed from flat, but gains ran as high as about 15 cents while losses topped out at nearly 20 cents.

Bearish weather fundamentals and a weaker prior-day screen be damned! The cash market shrugged off its negative influences and posted gains at nearly all points Thursday. A couple of instances of flatness and an intra-Alberta decline were the exceptions to overall price firmness.

Buoyed by a new, 11-month high in the nearby crude oil market, the natural gas futures market shrugged off early weakness Monday to notch double-digit advances for the session. The April natural gas contract finished 13.4 cents stronger at $5.550, the highest prompt month closing price in nearly a month.

The gas cash market Tuesday shrugged off the impact of Claudette for a second day, anticipating the rapid return of about 2.54 Bcf/d of shut-in gas production possibly as soon as Wednesday morning, as well as another large weekly storage injection on Thursday and continued mild temperatures and weak cooling demand for the rest of the week.

For the second week in a row, natural gas futures shrugged off an undeniably bearish storage report. After dipping to $6.25 in the moments following the report of a record-setting 114 Bcf weekly storage injection, the July contract rebounded Thursday afternoon amid waves of short covering and speculative buying. The contract notched its highest close ever at $6.521, up 14.6 cents for the session and within striking distance of Wednesday’s $6.61 top.

The cash market shrugged off Tuesday’s modest weakening toresume an upward climb Wednesday. Yesterday’s gains weren’t aslarge as those on Monday (mostly 5-10 cents compared with 10-20cents, respectively). Also unlike Monday’s trading, there was nogeographical divergence with Western increases being significantlyless than the East’s; the Wednesday upticks were mixed relativelyequally in both areas.