Spot prices continued to wither Wednesday due to a combination of relatively moderate temperatures in several regions around the midpoint of what is normally the hottest month of the year and further softness in prior-day futures. And despite continuing deficits of current storage compared to year-ago levels and the five-year average, traders appear unconcerned about inventories, especially with what was generally expected to be a very busy Atlantic hurricane season having little impact so far on Gulf of Mexico output.

Of course, although seven named tropical storms have come and gone already, the traditionally heaviest part of hurricane season has just begun.

Following Tuesday’s near-flat performance at nearly all points, Wednesday quotes were recording small losses ranging from 2-3 cents to a little more than a dime at a large majority of locations. There were still several instances of flatness, while NOVA Inventory Transfer’s uptick of a couple of pennies constituted the only real gain, albeit fairly insignificant. Most of the largest price dips occurred in the Northeast.

Prompt-month futures forged a barely perceptible rally of 0.1 cent (see related story), which was unlikely to excite cash traders Thursday.

Post-Tropical Storm Gert faded from its monitors into the North Atlantic overnight Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said. Meanwhile, it upgraded the strengthening chances of a tropical wave that had moved into the central Caribbean Sea from 20% to 40% by Wednesday afternoon.

After reporting linepack trending toward excess levels in the first two days of the week, Westcoast said volumes were returning to normal Wednesday. After recording Tuesday’s biggest price drop of C6 cents Tuesday, Station 2 quotes essentially were flat Wednesday.

The Northern Natural Gas bulletin board provided a good clue about the dearth of mid-August cooling load in the Upper Midwest with a posting saying that compared with the normal system weighted temperature of 70 at this time of year, it projected the average rising slightly from 72 Wednesday to 74 Thursday before dropping back to 70 and 68 on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

The CIG-Henry Hub basis spread shrank to about 18 cents, one of the smallest gaps in recent weeks.

A Florida trader said recent rain allowed Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) to dismiss its Tuesday caution about a potential Overage Alert Day. The state will be pretty warm through the weekend, but not nearly as hot as earlier this summer, he said, adding that peak temperatures were around 100 in much of Florida at the end of July, but not getting much above the low 90s now.

Looking ahead to the September bidweek, the trader said “a lot of people are gun-shy about it.” Anybody that bought baseload August gas off index is now paying 30-40 cents or so more than current pricing, he said. For example, while NGI‘s FGT Zone 3 index for August was $4.49, he was buying spot gas there Wednesday in the upper $3.90s.

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