Spring

A smaller than expected natural gas storage injection teamed with continued crude futures strength to spring July natural gas futures above $4 temporarily on Thursday. After recording a high of $4.067 just after 1 p.m. EDT, the prompt-month contract ended up closing the day’s regular session up 22.5 cents from Wednesday’s finish at $3.933, while July crude futures topped out north of $73/bbl before coming to rest at $72.68/bbl, up $1.35 from Wednesday.

For the second time this spring Colorado State University (CSU) forecasters have cut their 2009 Atlantic hurricane forecast, saying they now foresee slightly below-average tropical storm activity and slightly below-average probability of a major hurricane hitting the United States.

For the second time this spring Colorado State University (CSU) forecasters have cut their 2009 Atlantic hurricane forecast, saying they now foresee slightly below-average tropical storm activity and slightly below-average probability of a major hurricane hitting the United States.

It wasn’t very surprising that the limited amount of early-spring cooling load across the southern U.S. and rapidly vanishing heating demand in the upper Northeast, which had produced small gains at most points Wednesday, were unable to sustain that firmness Thursday. Losses occurred at a large majority of points, although price movement continued to be minor as few declines exceeded a dime.

Although the official start of spring is less than two weeks away, Bellevue, WA-based Puget Sound Energy (PSE) said Wednesday it has set new one-day sendout records for natural gas and electricity in March. The Puget Energy utility said a beneficial side effect is that the added gas demand from customers is giving the utility a chance to fill up its storage reservoir with more low-priced supplies that are now available.

Spring-like weather was starting to bust out in quite a few areas Friday and due to continue through the weekend. That was evident in the spot gas market as prices fell at nearly all points. The weekend loss of industrial demand was another bearish factor, while the previous day’s 4.5-cent gain by March futures obviously did little to support cash numbers.

A proposal to drill for natural gas on Colorado’s Mount Herman in the Pike National Forest has been delayed until spring 2009, the U.S. Forest Service said Thursday.

With more truly spring-like weather starting to supplant lingering vestiges of winter in sections of the North and the Rockies, most points were flat to down as much as about 80 cents Monday. Several locations, primarily in the California, Arizona/Nevada and Southwest basin areas, were higher.

Call it a sure sign of changing times in Canadian production. A spring construction start has been set for a project that will convert Canada’s 51-year-old original natural gas export mainline to oilsands service.