Warm

Relatively warm weather during winter’s final months and a halting economic upturn continued to keep a lid on natural gas sales during the first quarter of 2012, according to NGI’s 1Q2012 Top North American Gas Marketers Ranking, which found a majority of companies reporting sales declining or flat compared with 1Q2011.

Setting aside low natural gas prices and unseasonably warm weather in the first quarter, Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources Group Inc. is riding the continuing Bakken Shale boom in its home state, growing its oil production 19% for the first three months of this year and increasing its working rig count from two to 10 for its exploration and production (E&P) unit over the most recent quarter-over-quarter period.

Due to the high level of storage overhang at the end of winter, which was the result of record gas production in 2011 and a warm winter, the construction of new storage facilities in the United States is not recommended, according to a report issued by FERC’s Office of Enforcement (OE) Thursday.

Because natural gas demand still is being hurt by weak U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth, industrial output and “uncommonly warm weather,” Deutsche Bank on Friday reduced its gas price forecast for the second time in less than a month.

Hardly any area can claim to be as much as “warm” any more, but generally seasonable temperatures dominating the near- to intermediate-term weather outlook early in the fledgling heating season resulted in dropping prices across the board Friday. The weekend decline of industrial demand and the bearish nature of the previous day’s storage report were additional market depressants.

Effective Saturday (April 9) until further notice, Nicor Gas implemented pipeline caps for deliveries to its citygate. The OFO Cap Day “is necessary due to forecasted unseasonably warm weather over the weekend period resulting in reduced system demand,” the northern Illinois LDC said. It also halted Nicor Hub interruptible storage injection services until further notice but said withdrawals will continue to be accepted. See the bulletin board for further details.

Modest gains dominated the cash market Monday, even though warm to moderate forecasts in most areas were mostly unsupportive of price bullishness. However, a minor 3.2-cent uptick by September futures on the preceding Friday did help.

As expected, the prior-day spike of 28 cents by August futures and prospects for warm-to-hot weekend temperatures in much of North America generated gains in cash prices at virtually all points Friday.

Only a day after implementing it, MRT said it was lifting Friday a warm weather-related System Protection Warning that began Thursday.