The spell of rising prices based on little or no fundamental support finally was broken Wednesday. Price movement ranged from flat to about 15 cents down, with most declines between about a nickel and a little more than a dime. Western numbers tended to see the smallest losses due to a blast of colder than expected weather that prompted a low-linepack OFO by El Paso (see Transportation Notes).

Several things added up to reverse three straight days of upward market momentum, a Houston-based source said. People were expecting a small storage withdrawal figure from AGA in the afternoon, the screen was down a little more than a nickel, and most importantly, prices just couldn’t keep chugging higher indefinitely with relatively light weather load in most areas, he said.

However, there was some increase in weather load in the West that kept regional price declines to a nickel or less in most cases and caused San Juan Basin and some California points to be essentially flat, according to a marketer. East-of-California buyers “came out in full force,” he said. “Arizona Public Service, Salt River Project and Southwest Gas were all asking for intraday as well as next-day supplies. They missed their forecast, because it got quite a bit colder than they expected.”

In addition, a new winter storm was expected to be moving in today from the Pacific Ocean over much of the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. PG&E, which saw citygates drop barely a penny yesterday, did not issue an OFO but projected that its linepack would be just above minimum target levels through Friday.

Chicago citygates got little price-boosting impact from a compressor station outage on Alliance (see Transportation Notes), although numbers did run up a bit in late trading, a marketer said. The outage is blocking what a Calgary-based producer estimated as about 284 MMcf/d of Authorized Overrun Service from reaching Chicago. AOS is allocated capacity that becomes available after all Alliance firm service obligations have been met, the producer said. Previously this week it had been running about 30% of Alliance’s total 1.325 Bcf/d capacity but now is down to 8.5% until Saturday, when the station outage is due to end, she added.

Northeast citygates saw many of yesterday’s dime-plus declines, led by a fall of about 16 cents at Transco Zone 6-NYC, as cold weather begins to moderate there.

AGA said 22 Bcf was taken out of storage last week (the withdrawals occurred almost entirely in the Consuming Regions East and West, while the Producing Region registered a net injection of 4 Bcf). The volume was in line with most previous expectations, leaving sources mixed on how the cash market will react today. A marketer’s prediction of flat to moderately softer again was backed by a couple of other traders.

The National Weather Service’s six-to-10-day forecast continues to provide a mostly bearish picture for the gas market next week. The only below normal temperatures are expected in the southeastern corner of the U.S. and over much of the “Four Corners” states (Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona). Thermometers are expected to read above normal in the rest of the nation except for sections immediately adjacent to the below normal areas.

However, a marketer noted that just beyond that, in some 11-to-14-day forecasts, a system called the “Greenland Block” is expected to begin a siege of severe winter weather in the key market areas of the Midwest and Northeast that could last up to three weeks.

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