Futures traders essentially ignored the formation of Tropical Storm Alex, and the cash market also paid it little heed as prices were little changed from flat Monday. Lower numbers constituted a slight majority, especially in the Midcontinent, Rockies and Western Canada.

Losses ranged from 2-cents to about C15 cents. The rest of the market was flat to about a nickel higher.

The previous Friday’s futures gain of 11.3 cents and the return of industrial load from its usual weekend decline obviously had little supportive impact for the cash market. It will again have negative screen guidance Tuesday after the prompt-month July futures contract expired with a loss of 14.4 cents (see related story).

The tropical wave that was in the western Caribbean Sea last Friday developed into Tropical Storm Alex over the weekend and traversed Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. However, its impact on the gas market was negligible as the National Hurricane Center predicted that Alex would make landfall around Thursday in northern Mexico, just south of the southern tip of Texas. That would keep it away from nearly all U.S. production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

Cooling load will still be around Tuesday but not quite as substantive as last week. Few locations in the southern U.S. other than the desert Southwest will be getting much above 90 degrees, while Canada and most northern U.S. areas will be limited to the upper 60s, 70s and low to mid 80s.

Florida Gas Transmission still had an Overage Alert Day in effect Monday, but the Florida citygate fell about a nickel.

Some excess supply issues in the West were easing as PG&E ended a high-inventory OFO (see Transportation Notes) and El Paso said its linepack had returned to normal levels. However, NOVA said it might be required to change its imbalance tolerance due to high linepack.

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