Cash quotes fell Thursday at most points as expected, but the market displayed more resilience than some had anticipated by including a fair-sized number of flat (or a little higher in a couple of cases) locations in its overall mix.

Otherwise prices dropped by anywhere from a couple of pennies to a quarter. A majority of losses were in single digits, and Northeast citygates took all of the largest hits of 15 cents or more.

The primary cause of Thursday’s general softening was obvious: although winter-like conditions were due to persist at least through Friday in the Northeast, Midwest and parts of the West, those areas would be well along the transition path to much milder weather before the weekend came to an end. Of course, Wednesday’s screen drop of 11 cents and the typical loss of industrial load over a holiday weekend were other factors.

Even with Wednesday’s and Thursday’s declines, prices remain well over half a dollar higher than first-of-month indexes with the end of March rapidly approaching. At least 18 points maintained a premium of more than a dollar above index Thursday.

The Energy Information Administration contributed to a generally bearish outlook for this week’s prices by estimating a withdrawal of 89 Bcf from storage during the week ending March 18. The volume fell shy of prior estimations centered on the 90-100 Bcf range, and several analysts believe that could be the last sizeable pull reported in the waning days of the winter heating season.

Thursday’s session saw “pretty quiet trading,” according to a Northeast source. There was plenty of extra supply “floating around the market area” due to industrials cutting back their weekend flows, he noted. Late prices went lower following release of the storage report, but very little volume remained to be traded by then. The above seasonal temperatures that are forecast for the Northeast this week will be the region’s first such mild weather since early February, the source added, creating “a pretty bearish setup” for the end-of-March swing market.

It turns out that Wednesday afternoon’s blast at a massive BP refinery complex in Texas City southeast of Houston had almost no impact on intrastate gas load. A BP spokesman was quoted as saying only the gasoline octane enhancement unit where the explosion and fire occurred is out of commission, and the rest of the refinery is operating normally.

Bidweek business was somewhat tentative Thursday because of swing trading for a longer weekend flow period than usual and the usual pre-holiday rush to finish work early. Barring a collapse of the April futures contract between now and Tuesday’s expiration, it appears likely that cash market indexes will see substantial jumps from March levels. The April screen finished down 7.6 cents Thursday at $7.062, which is more than 75 cents above March’s $6.304 settlement.

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