Siege

With the previous two weeks’ siege of especially cold weather coming to an end in most areas, prices fell at nearly all points Tuesday. The Florida citygate plunged nearly $5 despite Florida Gas Transmission keeping an Overage Alert Day in place. Northeast citygates, which had been averaging above $10 at times last week, were failing to reach the $7 level as they repeated in having most of the largest declines.

With a siege of frigid weather in the East not only showing little sign of letting up soon, and even strengthening by New Year’s Day, and the South having returned to lows on either side of freezing over the weekend, multi-dollar spikes in the Northeast led an across-the-board advance by the spot market Monday.

Triple-digit gains at Northeast citygates led strong advances across the board in the cash market Monday as a siege of cold weather was established in nearly all of the U.S. and Canada and threatened to grow even more severe later in the week.

With most of North America under siege from extreme cold and winter storms that caused power outages, disrupted transport to work or school and resulted in numerous flight cancellations, the cash gas market responded with a continuing ascent of prices at nearly all points Wednesday. Several gains were measured in triple digits in the Northeast and Gulf Coast.

Faced with a lengthy new siege of cold weather that could come close to rivaling the blizzard experienced last weekend, all Northeast citygates shot higher by multi-dollar amounts Wednesday. And once again the rest of the cash market appeared quite bland in comparison, with price movement seldom varying by much more than a nickel up or down from flat, although gains extended as high as about 35 cents (Dominion in Appalachia) and losses ran as big as half a dollar (Transco Station 45 in the Gulf Coast).

Although this week’s winter siege likely was reaching its maximum area of penetration Wednesday, for the most part it had lost much of its price-boosting power. Except for big advances by Florida citygates and some citygates in the Northeast, the rest of the cash market had settled down for a generally flat performance, with scattered points showing 1 to 5 cent increases.

The siege of cold weather due this week had traders back in a stocking-up mood Friday as generally flat pricing reigned throughout the East despite the load decline that typically accompanies a weekend. However, a high-linepack OFO issued for Saturday by Southern California Gas, which was experiencing date-specific record warmth in its service area, had reverberations in the rest of the West, sending most regional numbers lower between about 3 cents and a dime.

Last week’s siege of severe winter weather retained enough market influence Friday to have weekend prices in the Northeast ranging from flat to up as much as nearly 20 cents (Transco Zone 6-NYC), although most gains were less than a dime. Western points, where some moderation of the cold was already under way, tended to see mostly tiny declines of a couple of cents or so.