Steeper

Late-week price losses got steeper Friday even with forecasts of peak temperatures around 100 degrees or more still prevailing for most of the southern third of the U.S. Cooling trends in the key Midwest and Northeast market areas, along with the previous day’s plunge of 14.9 cents by September futures and the usual weekend drop of industrial load, obviously played a large role in Friday’s market softness.

Nobody is proclaiming winter as “over” yet, but the worst is past as far as many are concerned. The downhill slope for Northeast citygates grew even steeper Friday, and most other points joined them with more mundane losses. Several scattered points ran against the overall market grain by being flat to about a dime higher.

The downhill slope on which virtually all points were launched Wednesday got even steeper across the board Thursday, and promises to be even more slippery Friday following a dollar-plus swan dive by January natural gas futures. Heating load is diminishing dramatically as the harsh cold in which many markets began the week continues to become past tense.

The price slide that had started Thursday tended to get steeper in Friday’s trading for the weekend. There were a few single-digit declines mixed into the across-the-board softness, but plenty of points fell 20 cents or more amid the majority of dips ranging from a dime to nearly 30 cents.

The slope for sliding prices got considerably steeper in nearly all of the market Thursday, although a few western points managed to hang tough with flat performances. The factors of mild weather pervading much of the East, prior-day futures weakness, lack of tropical storm threats to offshore production and realized expectations of a bearish storage report all contributed to the overall softening.

The slide that started Wednesday in cash prices got quite a bit steeper Thursday in trading done through the end of the month because of the Memorial Day holiday. Friday’s deals will be done for flows next Tuesday.

The downhill slope for swing prices got a bit steeper Wednesday. Most points recorded losses between 10 and 20 cents, although a few in the San Juan/Rockies market saw smaller declines as high temperatures continued to hit the century mark in much of the interior West.

The downhill price path got steeper for nearly all points Wednesday except for a few in the West. Traders continued to dwell on the relative brevity of a heat wave this week in northern market areas and their expectations of another 100 Bcf-plus storage refill in Thursday morning’s report by the Energy Information Administration.

This week’s price rally ran out of steam Thursday with nearly all points declining in double digits. Traders anticipated a moderation of the blast of winter that had invaded most of the nation except for the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states, and also noted considerable weakness in the natural gas, crude oil and heating oil futures contracts.