Sparse

With Hurricane Dean continuing to recede as a potential threat to U.S. offshore production, cooling load remaining sparse outside the South and Southwest and a near-dollar plunge by September futures the day before serving as highly negative guidance, the cash market continued to fall by mostly large amounts at all points Tuesday.

Playing out as expected ahead of the four-day Independence Day holiday weekend, natural gas futures trading was sparse in Friday’s shortened session as a number of traders opted to start the weekend early. Trading within an ultra slim 9-cent range, August natural gas finished the week at $6.104, down 3.1 cents on the day and 31.2 cents lower than the previous Friday’s close.

Instead of riding the coattails of prior-day spikes in energy futures higher, as some sources had expected, the cash market started paying more attention again to weak fundamentals Wednesday. The result was price declines ranging from about a nickel to nearly 40 cents in the East, with a couple of flat to barely lower points thrown into the mix.

Asserting that the current landscape for merger-related activity in the utility sector is “kind of barren,” Dominion Resources Inc. CEO Thomas Capps on Friday denied rumors that the Virginia-based power company is in merger talks with another unnamed company.

In a move strikingly similar to Monday’s price action, the natural gas futures market rebounded modestly from early lows Tuesday. And while the session-long march higher was unable to overcome the dramatic early-session price weakness, it serves as additional evidence natural gas has not yet seen its winter high.

After a 25-minute delay in which bagpipes played and traders listened to the reading of the 2,801 names of people that perished a few blocks away one year ago, the natural gas futures market opened solemnly Wednesday as market-watchers and traders went through the motions, but clearly had their minds on things other than the future price of hydrocarbons.

Details were still somewhat sparse Saturday, but Northwest Pipeline was able to confirm that there had been a line failure on its pipeline near Stevenson, WA Friday night about 8:20 (PST). Personnel were immediately dispatched to the site to secure the area. As of press time Saturday, no injuries were reported and the cause of the incident was under investigation.