Although trends toward milder weather would be minuscule over the weekend, traders used the likelihood that they would become more pronounced in the coming week to push cash prices lower at nearly all points Friday. As usual, the typical weekend drop in industrial load was a minor factor in the softness.

An occasional flat point worked its way into the market mix in which most quotes fell anywhere from a couple of pennies to nearly a quarter. Northeast citygates took most of the largest hits. OGT in the Midcontinent had a solo part in rising about a nickel.

Heating load was due to remain pretty substantial since snow and below average temperatures were forecast to persist into early this week in various sections of all four major regions of the U.S. It was primarily the relative improvement from last week’s worst late-winter weather, along with a slightly bearish storage report Thursday, that provided the impetus for a softer market, according to one source.

The Weather 2000 consulting firm agrees to some degree with the National Weather Service that cold weather will be moderating this week. Signs of spring are starting to appear on the horizon for the West, Weather 2000 said in a Thursday advisory. However, many Northerners would be looking for their snow shovels when spring officially began at 7:33 a.m. EST Sunday (March 20), it said. “The back half of potentially the coldest March in 20 years is hanging tough with more negative anomalies and snowfall in store…Nationally speaking, HDDs [heating degree days] by far rule the show, with CDDs [cooling degree days] scantily popping up in the warmest desert locations.”

Much like Friday, the outlook for Monday seemed rather indecisive. Modest gains in natural gas and crude oil futures Friday and the return of industrial demand Monday argued for a mild rally, but the forecasts for milder weather and the continuing substantive year-on-year storage surplus (with the traditional end of withdrawal season rapidly drawing nigh) made a strong pitch in the opposite direction.

A sign of an impending price depressant in the Rockies/Pacific Northwest market? The withdrawal season apparently ended some time ago for Northwest Pipeline’s Jackson Prairie storage facility, since inventory has been building over the past few weeks and Jackson Prairie is now nearly three-quarters full. As of March 16, Northwest reported, the facility’s total current inventory stood at 15,148,125 dekatherms; total working gas capacity is 21,519,913 dekatherms.

Northern Natural’s demarc and Ventura points fell about a nickel and 3 cents respectively despite freezing temperatures along the pipeline’s system. Noting a normal weighted system temperature of 34 degrees at this time of year, Northern Natural reported these projections of system temperatures through the weekend: 27 Friday and Saturday, 29 Sunday and 30 Monday.

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