Weakness

A combination of rising natural gas prices, the stumbling residential housing market and general economic weakness has led to above-average increases in past-due payments at many local distribution companies (LDC), particularly in the eastern United States, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Most of the cash market dropped again Thursday, pressured lower by Wednesday’s third straight day of futures weakness and unable to rebound despite increases of cooling load in some areas.

Sparked mostly by a round of crude weakness and U.S. dollar strength, August natural gas futures plummeted following the long holiday — breaking beneath psychological support at $13 along the way. The prompt-month contract recorded a low of $12.874 before going on to settle at $12.977, down 60 cents from Friday’s finish.

Prices continued to slide at most points Thursday under pressure from two previous days of futures weakness, excess supply issues in parts of the West and insufficient cooling demand to keep a floor under overall pricing.

Coming off the holiday weekend, some not-often-seen weakness in crude futures and natural gas futures price resistance at $12 teamed to push June natural gas lower on Tuesday, one day ahead of the contract’s expiration. The prompt-month contract recorded a high of $12.034 just after noon EDT, which triggered a round of selling that left June to finish the day’s regular session at $11.801, down 5.6 cents from Friday’s close.

A day after a mostly rising cash market ignored general weakness in weather fundamentals, most points were down Wednesday in recognition of the dearth of weather-based support, even though cooling load was forecast to be growing a bit in some areas Thursday. The overall physical market also failed to get a boost in value from Tuesday’s second straight day of a 15.2-cent futures advance.

Coming off the holiday weekend, traders who once thought last week’s technical weakness solidified a bearish case are now being forced to rethink their outlook. April natural gas futures on Monday traded as high as $9.400 before settling the day at $9.329, up 26.4 cents from last Thursday’s close.

As expected, spot prices fell at most points Wednesday under the weight of prior-day futures weakness, the extra decline of industrial load during a four-day holiday weekend and only moderate heating load going into the weekend in such areas as the Northeast and South.

The nation’s third largest oil company, ConocoPhillips, reported third quarter earnings that were 5% below the year-ago period. The decline was largely due to weakness in the company’s refining business, it said last week.