Starting

A juggernaut of arctic air starting to exit the Northeast will leave temperatures close to normal Tuesday in the region, which was hit hardest pricewise by the latest winter storm. Temperatures were expected to stay largely static or grow slightly warmer in other market areas.

Northern Natural Gas, which had issued System Overrun Limitations in all market-area zones starting the previous Saturday (Jan. 15), is keeping them in effect through at least their ninth day by extending them into Sunday.

Encana Natural Gas Inc. has opened a compressed natural gas fueling station in Coushatta, LA, its first, to serve the company’s fleet of vehicles in Red River Parish. Starting next year the Encana Corp. subsidiary expects to offer the station’s fueling service to other corporate fleets in the region. The company said plans to open its next four natural gas fueling stations, one in each of the states of Wyoming and Colorado and two in Western Canada next year.

Due to an engine failure at MRT’s Unionville Storage facilities, starting Wednesday through approximately Aug. 6 the pipeline will be limited in injection capability there. See the bulletin board for associated transport restrictions.

The winter weather machine was starting to rev up its engines again, with forecasts of lows around freezing or colder extending into most of the South, and the spot market responded with small to moderate increases at a large majority of points Tuesday. The return of industrial load from its greater-than-usual declines over a holiday weekend and Friday’s 7.2-cent uptick by March futures also played supportive roles.

The winter weather machine was starting to rev up its engines again, with forecasts of lows around freezing or colder extending into most of the South, and the spot market responded with small to moderate increases at a large majority of points Tuesday. The return of industrial load from its greater-than-usual declines over a holiday weekend and Friday’s 7.2-cent uptick by March futures also played supportive roles.

As the House of Representatives moved toward floor debate starting Thursday with a possible vote within a few days on financial reform measures, all the major natural gas and electric power organizations joined in a letter to House members urging that the end-user exemption from mandatory clearing or exchange trading of derivatives or swaps be preserved.

This week’s market may have resembled the one of the previous week in starting out with major gains Monday, but it took a lot less time to acknowledge the continuing overall weakness of weather demand as prices fell across the board Tuesday. Even with increases in heating load on tap for Wednesday in such key gas-consuming regions as the Midwest, fundamental support proved inadequate to keep the market from reverting to its losing ways of last Thursday and Friday.

IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE) will be imposing position and accountability limits on its Henry Hub over-the-counter (OTC) swaps contract, starting with the February 2010 contract, to conform with directives from the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC) regarding contracts that perform a significant price discovery function (SPDF).