Unified price movement almost made one of its rare return visits to the cash market in recent weeks Thursday. All points responded to the previous day’s 22.1-cent advance by August futures with gains. Prices rose overall despite a substantial dearth of fundamental cooling load in many areas.

Thursday’s upticks ranged from about dime to 70 cents. The Rockies registered most of the largest increases due to Friday forecasts of temperatures around 100 degrees or more ranging from the desert Southwest to the northern Plains.

But otherwise weather-based demand is decidedly sparse. Temperatures will be easing a bit in the Midcontinent, and the Midwest had virtually no cooling load to speak of with Friday highs of 73 in Chicago and 72 in Detroit expected. The Northeast will be similarly mild after a cold front moved through the region Thursday.

Even the South isn’t holding up its normal share of summer air conditioning use. Some locations will hit 90 degrees or slightly higher, but the western end of the South is cooling off. Such locations as Memphis and Little Rock will see high temperatures drop by six to nine degrees Friday into the mid to high 80s.

The Energy Information Administration’s report of a 65 Bcf storage injection for the week ending July 13 was well within the range of prior expectations but slightly below consensus estimates in the upper 60s Bcf. Nymex traders extended Wednesday’s bullishness by tacking another 17.8 cents onto the August contract.

One source didn’t expect cash firmness to continue at most points Friday even with substantive prior-day screen support. There’s just too much mild weather in too many places, he said, and the weekend loss of industrial load will be a factor in Friday’s trading.

Northwest-South of Green River saw the largest gain as ongoing maintenance on the pipeline continued to limit capacity. Another Northwest constraint surfaced as the pipeline reported hydrocarbon dew point levels at the Sand Springs receipt point exceeding its tariff specifications and the pipeline limited volumes at the point to 220,000 Dth/d until further notice (see Transportation Notes).

The Gulf Coast will receive additional supply next week as the Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS) begins restart operations. MOPS was shut in June 12 in connection with a project to disconnect and abandon a compression platform, and the outage lasted longer than expected due to inclement weather (see Transportation Notes).

A Calgary-based producer acknowledged that natural gas futures strength played a significant role in Thursday’s cash increases, but he thinks the even greater strength in Nymex’s crude oil contract (it climbed nearly 90 cents Thursday to settle a little shy of $76/bbl) played a big role in the major rally of cash gas. Undoubtedly there must be a lot of fuel switching going on with such great pricing disparity between the two fuels, he said.

Otherwise there is little weather-based demand for gas, and the storage number was largely anticipated, the producer continued. He thinks the day will come toward late August when prices tank because there will be too many storage facilities with no available capacity for injections. People with firm storage contracts may still have some injection capacity left, but a lot of traders will no longer have the option of stashing gas away in storage when current-burn demand sags. Hopefully the market will get some major heat waves before then to slow down the injection pace, he added.

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