The cash market stanched its bleeding somewhat as the July aftermarket got launched Wednesday, in the sense that most price declines were smaller than the day before and a few scattered points were flat to higher. The highly temperature-sensitive Cheyenne Hub and CIG even managed genuinely substantial rebounds of 20-25 cents or so due to Rockies-area weather starting to heat up.

Most of the market was still soft, however, with losses ranging from a couple of pennies to about 20 cents. Although overall weather fundamentals are getting a bit more supportive, they remain substandard going into one of the hottest months of the year.

Thursday may be the general market’s last chance for an all-around rally, because the long holiday weekend is certain to doom any possibility of higher prices Friday. The natural gas screen’s small rise of 3.7 cents Wednesday, mixed among much larger gains in the petroleum products contracts, and gradually rising temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast market areas may be enough for cash to post higher numbers Thursday, one trader said.

A Houston-based marketer said he found “mostly sellers out there today” at the Chicago citygate. Midwest weather is still fairly mild, so there’s little power generation demand, he said. He complained of having to deal with nominations cuts on Transco because of a Station 35 constraint.

Hotter weather in parts of the West helped mitigate the price-depressing impact of PG&E’s keeping a high-linepack OFO with zero imbalance tolerance in effect through at least Thursday.

It was getting “a little warmer” in the Northeast with highs in the 80s for the most part, a utility buyer said. However, a cold front due in the region Thursday night is likely to keep a lid on any potential price hikes Thursday. She reported that at first Transco Zone 6 (non-NYC) demand was slow, but it picked up near the end, allowing her to sell all that the company had available at that point. “We bought most of our system gas at Niagara because it was cheaper there than in the Gulf Coast,” she said. She perceived Wednesday’s market as “kind of slow” because it involved trading for the first of the month, and traders were taking it easy until they get a better idea of how the early aftermarket will be shaking out.

In its forecast for the July 5-9 period, the National Weather Service (NWS) expects above normal temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and everywhere east of a line from western New York to the western end of the Florida Panhandle. It looks for below normal thermometer levels in Southern California and the southwestern quadrant of Arizona, and also in a large area encompassing the Rocky Mountains and parts of the Upper Plains, western Midwest and Midcontinent.

Late bidweek prices were “kind of leveling off” Wednesday, but the only people still buying gas were those who felt a little bit short, a marketer commented.

El Paso’s plan to begin “Bounce at the California Border Transactions” in July (see Transportation Notes) was creating a solid premium at the Ehrenberg border point, a western buyer said late last week. “Right now all the other SoCal delivery points like Topock and Wheeler Ridge are trading at index minus a penny or two, but Ehrenberg is trading at index plus 3-7 cents,” he said.

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