Surprising

Natural gas futures extended to new two-week highs Thursday on the surprising news that 9 Bcf was withdrawn from underground storage facilities last week. Bulls were quick to react to the data, and were responsible for propelling the market 17 cents higher in the five minutes following the 10:30 a.m. EDT release. The market continued to chop higher in the late morning and afternoon in an extremely active session that saw more than 90,000 contracts change hands. May finished at $5.419, up 22.4 cents for the day.

Old Man Winter is showing signs of surprising longevity for an aging senior citizen. The cold and sometimes snowy weather that had been around earlier in the week in the Rockies was leaving that region Friday but was showing up or expected in much of the East.

In a surprising show of strength considering the weak underlying cash prices and a bearish storage report (7 Bcf injection) announced Thursday morning, natural gas futures rallied back to the mid-$5.20s late Thursday morning. However, buying dried up for the expiring April contract and sellers were waiting to push it lower at the closing bell. At $5.146, April completed its tenure as prompt month up 4.9 cents on the day, but down 30% since becoming prompt month. The new prompt month, May, surged 9.3 cents to close at $5.24.

Surprising more than one trader, the cash market didn’t follow its usual recent pattern of following Tuesday’s screen dive on the following day. Instead, cash was flat to up 50 cents in most cases Wednesday. Most gains were in single digits.

In a surprising announcement last week, California’s Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) revealed that it fired an employee Monday for violating the grid operator’s rules by seeking a specific bid and price from Enron Corp. The issue surfaced last week from some state legislative subpoenaed tape recordings from Enron Corp. The incident at this point is thought to be an isolated case with a market impact of less than $100,000. No criminal or civil charges are contemplated at this time.

The weekly withdrawal from storage was slightly below average market expectations of about 90 Bcf but not surprising in light of the week’s warmer than normal weather. Working storage levels at 2,212 Bcf remain incredibly high with 1.1 Tcf more working gas than at the same time last year and 675 Bcf more than the five-year average.

In a surprising show of strength considering the price-bearish fundamental picture, natural gas futures soared to new two-month highs again Monday as fund traders continued their accumulation of long positions. A gap higher open set the stage early yesterday and bears never fully regained control, watching helplessly as November traded to $3.30, its highest level since Aug. 22. The prompt month closed just off that level, up 16.1 cents for the session and 95 cents for the month at $3.202. Estimated volume was typical for an expiration day, with 100,102 contracts changing hands.

More than one trader was more than a bit surprised at the price run-up in most markets Tuesday in two-day deals covering the Fourth of July holiday, which normally is considered one of the lowest demand periods of the year. Only Rockies/San Juan/Pacific Northwest points and a few Northeast citygates softened, in contrast with numbers elsewhere that ranged from flat to about 15 cents higher outside California and gains at California points that exceeded half a dollar.

Prices continued to fall almost across the board Friday, which was hardly surprising because a pattern of weak weather fundamentals remained in place, June futures dropped more than a nickel in their prompt-month debut, and gas demand typically goes down over a weekend period.