Although a couple of sources were not impressed, a cold front taking overnight lows into the 40s in the Midwest and scheduled to move into the Northeast over the next couple of days appeared to be creating a modicum of heating load that played some role in a strong price rebound at nearly all points Monday. The screen’s increase of nearly a dime on the previous Friday and the return of industrial load from its weekend slump also supported the cash rally.

Monday’s gains ranged from 35 cents or so to a little more than $1.10. Curiously, the West was home to both the smallest and largest upticks and also contained the only decline at Cheyenne Hub, which had been most resistant late last week to the overall Rockies weakness. That weakness had been caused by a shutdown of Northwest’s Pleasant View Compressor Station, which put a big crimp in Rockies pipes’ southbound transportation access to San Juan Basin interconnects with Transwestern and El Paso (see Daily GPI, Sept. 14).

Although they recorded Monday’s smallest rebounds, Rockies points still managed to rise (excluding Cheyenne Hub) despite Northwest announcing that it had to extend the Moab District hydro-tests that are restricting Pleasant View capacity to zero for an extra day through Tuesday (see Transportation Notes). However, quotes were bottoming out as low as $1.50 in the Rockies.

Linepack issues abounded in the West. Although SoCalGas and PG&E ended their weekend high-linepack OFOs Monday, El Paso had implemented a Strained Operating Condition Sunday because of high linepack and its Washington Ranch storage facility being unavailable for injections due to well testing (see Transportation Notes). This made gains of about a dollar at El Paso-Permian and El Paso-San Juan seem rather improbable. Kern River also was experiencing high linepack in the three farthest downstream of its four segments.

On the other side of the nation, Florida Gas Transmission cited low linepack as a reason for its issuing an Overage Alert Day Monday.

Midwest weather is turning colder, “but it’s nothing to get excited about,” a Midcontinent producer commented. Lows in the 40s may have some furnaces being turned on, he acknowledged, but he thought a lot of people in the market area are probably are just shutting their windows and bundling up a little more. He gave more credit for Monday’s strength to prices having mostly moved lower for so long that “now it’s time to rally.” He noted that October futures started the day lower than where they finished Friday, but rebounded to $5.14 during the morning before retreating to a 4-cent loss on the day.

Despite the price firmness, the producer perceived current trading volumes as lighter than usual. “Customers seem to be laying low,” he said, suggesting that maybe some people are filling their storage accounts and with light weather-based demand have just quit buying gas for a while.

A Northeast marketer agreed that heating load was not very persuasive as an argument in the resurgence of prices, noting that the region’s forecasted lows Tuesday were not falling under the 50s. Instead, he considered the Nymex advance Friday and cash prices having gotten “artificially low” as a more accurate reading of Monday’s increases. It’s actually “nice up here” in the Northeast, he said, and there was a “little bit” of power generation demand. But he expects prices to begin softening again around midweek.

Despite two hurricanes at the same time, the Atlantic tropical scene still contained nothing of interest to the gas market. Hurricane Gordon was moving to the east-northeast in the North Atlantic and becoming a potential threat to the Azores Islands, the National Hurricane Center said. Meanwhile, Helene had strengthened to hurricane status over the weekend but appeared destined to follow a path similar to those of predecessors Florence and Gordon and stay far from the North American coast.

Baker Hughes counted 1,422 rigs drilling for gas in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 15 (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/). The tally was up by nine from the previous week, unchanged from a week earlier and 16% above the year-ago level, Baker Hughes said.

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