The expiring October natural gas futures contract is set to open 7 cents lower Wednesday morning at $2.93 as near-term weather changes with a stalled system over key energy markets. Overnight oil markets rose.

In a morning report Natgasweather.com said, “The latest weather data hasn’t brought any surprises as it maintains a warm overall pattern through the first week of October, but still with minor intrusions of cooler fall-like conditions, much like what’s currently occurring over the north-central U.S., and then over the West next week. Also of interest, a strengthening tropical system is tracking toward the Caribbean and will need close watching over the coming days as the expected track takes it just off the Southeast Atlantic Coast.”

The biggest change is in the populous Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. “Across the northern U.S., a weather system has stalled over the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, and as a result will continue to bring heavy showers with highs of only 60s to lower 70s. This has resulted in much lower power burns compared to last week due to mostly comfortable temperatures covering a majority of the U.S., highlighted by highs of 90s being confined to only portions of the West and South.

Demand just got a little weaker in the Gulf Coast as “Sabine [Pass] is now fully shut down for maintenance but will continue loading vessels with LNG from storage,” said industry consultant Genscape in a morning report. “No liquefaction is currently taking place at Sabine as part of the four-week maintenance that began last weekend, Sept. 17th, [and] this is the first time the entire Sabine facility has been shut down since September 2015.

“All flares and compressors are shut down as seen by the [infrared] camera image. With the Train 1 and 2 flare turning off last week and the Train 3 and 4 flare shutting down the week before it is expected that they have begun the repairs to fix the design flaws in both of these flares.”

In overnight Globex trading November crude oil rose 56 cents to $45.23/bbl and November RBOB gasoline gained 3 cents to $1.3927/gal.