Unchanged

Proving that Tuesday’s settle near unchanged was more of a rest day than a meeting with resistance, November natural gas futures on Wednesday shot 36.5 cents higher to close at $6.807. Despite near-record levels of natural gas in storage, a new forecast calling for a colder-than-normal winter in the East could have been a contributing factor in the price jump Wednesday.

Prices softened averted across the board in Thursday’s cash market. Negative influences were largely unchanged: widespread moderate weather, futures weakness, nearly full storage and the lack of a hurricane threat to offshore production with the end of the peak period (August-September) in Atlantic hurricane seasons rapidly approaching.

Despite beginning the day slowly Friday, October natural gas futures in afternoon trade went from nearly unchanged to lower in a hurry, settling at $11.144, down 19.2 cents on the day and 11.9 cents lower than the previous Friday’s close.

This year’s omnibus energy bill sashayed through three major House committees last week, virtually unchanged from the Republican drafts which had been offered by committee chairmen. The bill that is expected to go to the House floor for consideration this week calls for drilling on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and gives FERC sole authority over the siting of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals.

A few isolated flat points were in the mix, but the overall cash market fell again Monday between a nickel and about a quarter as weather-based load remained elusive for natural gas, and Gulf of Mexico shut-ins, while still at a high level, had already lost their price-boosting effects since the middle of last week.

Most of the market was close to flat Wednesday, with variations from unchanged usually limited to a nickel up or down. However, a few points in the West rose by anywhere from a little under a dime to nearly 15 cents, while some Northeast citygates fell by as much as about 15 cents.

After moving to either side of unchanged, the natural gas futures market finished in slightly positive territory Wednesday as concerns over a large storage number edged out forecasts calling for wide temperature swings over the next couple of weeks. At $6.387, the February contract was up 5.8 cents for the session, but well below its intra-day high of $6.58. At 70,004, estimated volume was moderate.

The recent bond offering and stock refinancing by Dynegy Inc. mitigated some concern on the company’s near-term liquidity position and financial flexibility, but they haven’t led to a change in its overall credit quality, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) analysts said Friday.

A day after lifting a systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO, Pacific Gas & Electric issued a new one for Saturday’s gas day. Penalties of $1/Dth were unchanged, but the tolerance for positive daily imbalances was loosened a bit from zero in the previous OFO to 2%.