Softer

Most Northeast citygates spiked by half a dollar or more Monday, led by a whopping dollar-plus gain to more than $6 in the Transco Zone 6-New York City pool, as sub-freezing temperatures reigned or approached across the northern tier of states as far west as the Rockies.

Despite softer natural gas futures and last week’s bearish weather forecasts for northern market areas this week, cash prices achieved moderate gains at nearly all points Monday. Most upticks ranged within 3-4 cents to either side of a dime, while flat to slightly lower numbers reigned in the Rockies.

Ignoring moderating weather conditions and softer energy futures, the cash market managed generally moderate gains at a majority of points Wednesday, with San Juan and Rockies prices seeing the largest advances. Several flat to slightly lower points were scattered among the price mix.

The pattern got broken. For a change cash prices did not follow the previous afternoon’s screen higher, which had been the norm in previous weeks whenever there was a significant change in futures after the morning’s cash deals were complete. Instead, most points were flat to about a dime lower Tuesday.

As sources had anticipated, Wednesday’s stall in this week’s bull market led to softer prices Thursday. A majority of losses were in the vicinity of a dime, but others ranged from only 1-2 cents down at a couple of Gulf Coast points to a drop of more than 30 cents at Transco’s Zone 6-NYC.

Transco Zone 6-New York City again skyrocketed by more than a dollar and further raised the peak price bar to $10 Tuesday, but the overall cash market rally had run out of gas, so to speak. Only Iroquois Zone 2 and Columbia-Appalachia managed to join NYC in higher numbers; the rest of the market ranged from flat to down about 20 cents. Most declines were around a dime or slightly less.

Except for minor softness in the Midcontinent/Midwest and Northeast areas, the East was dominated by flat pricing Thursday. The market tended to be a bit weaker at western points, which ranged from flat to down more than 15 cents (PG&E citygate).

Despite softer futures and continued relatively mild late-January weather outside the West and Upper Plains, prices either leveled off around flat or registered small gains nearly across the board Monday. Most of the larger increases of about a nickel occurred on Midcontinent and Rockies/Pacific Northwest pipes, because that’s where the worst winter weather was concentrated.

Mild weather seen in the Southeast and a softer U.S. economy were not enough to trip up Southern Co.’s 2001 earnings results as several factors, including continued customer growth and cost controls, helped the utility giant post earnings for the year of $1.12 billion, or $1.62 per share, compared with reported earnings of $994 million, or $1.52 per share, in 2000.