Wintry

Buoyed by run-ups throughout the energy futures complex the day before and the stubborn refusal of wintry weather to exit the market stage in some areas, cash prices recorded across-the-board gains in Friday’s trading for weekend flows.

It hadn’t reached the southern tier of states or Mid-Atlantic quite yet, but wintry conditions or a reasonable facsimile dominated the weather picture Wednesday and forecasts for the next few days in the rest of the U.S. and Canada. The cash market responded with major gains that were as small as 15-30 cents in most of the West but hit 35-70 cents or so throughout the East.

Following a Christmas Day storm that dropped as much as three feet of snow across parts of central New York and despite higher crude oil prices, natural gas futures funneled lower Thursday as traders alleviated overbought conditions and pressured the market to its lowest level in more than two weeks. With that the January contract completed its penultimate trading day at $4.962, down 18.4 cents for the session. January will expire Friday at 2:30 p.m. EST.

From a mixed performance the day before, the cash market went to a virtually united show of strength Tuesday. A large majority of the upticks were in double digits, but some — mostly in the Gulf Coast — were less than a dime.

In what a Midcontinent/Midwest trader called the first “real” spell of something approximating winter that the market has seen so far this season, cash prices made a huge turnaround Monday from the serious weakness they had shown heading into the weekend. Nearly all points rose at least 30 cents, and gains of half a dollar or more were not uncommon. Appalachian pipe CNG and some Northeast citygates peaked at $3 or more, a marketer said. NGI’s Henry Hub average gained 40 cents to $2.14.

Due to wintry weather moving in, Northern Natural Gas declared a System Overrun Limitation today for all market area zones (ABC, D and E/F).

A solid blast of cold, wintry weather and a technically bullishfutures screen produced tremendous price increases and enormousprice ranges nationwide last week. On Friday, there was little onthe horizon to change the current market picture other than thenormal weekend decline in demand.