The August aftermarket started out Wednesday flat to moderately up from end-of-July numbers in most cases, although the Rockies, California and some Northeast citygates dropped by varying amounts up to nearly a quarter. Comparisons to apparent first-of-month indexes were mixed, with swing prices tending to be above index by 10-30 cents in the East, but many western points falling short of index levels.

Despite the slight moderation of an East Coast heat wave and more large declines in Northeast power prices for next-day delivery, Transco Zone 6-NYC quotes continued to soar by well over a dollar on average and topped out at $11 Wednesday. “It’s as hot as ever but the humidity is easing off, so maybe we’ve made it through the worst of the power crisis,” said one trader in the Northeast. After the Zone 6-NYC peak at $11, numbers were falling off and ended the morning in the $5.20s, he said.

It’s the capacity bottleneck at Transco’s Linden (NJ) Station that is primarily responsible for Zone 6-NYC spiking so high in comparison to other Northeast citygates, a producer pointed out. And because of the liquidity limits imposed by that bottleneck, he added, “it takes only a few trades to make NYC prices really run.”

The declines as the trading session wore on had at least one source expecting that Zone 6-NYC quotes would come back down to earth Thursday. He noted that the point’s bid-offer spread for Friday flows was already $6.00-7.60 as of Wednesday afternoon. “I originally thought the heat in the Northeast would lift by Thursday, but now it looks like it will last till Sunday,” he said. It will be “interesting” to see if there is enough heat for rising prices Friday or if lower weekend demand will have them falling, the source added.

Another trader had this take on the situation: “Things were touch and go in the Northeast amid revised weather forecasts. Previously, they had called for moderating temperatures to begin Wednesday, but this morning [Wednesday] they pushed the cool front back a day. While that made for some high prices this morning, it is a setup for a big fall heading into the weekend.”

It was getting even hotter Wednesday in the Midwest with heat indexes in the 100s, said a regional utility buyer. Some parts of the Upper Midwest will be getting relief from a cold front moving in Thursday, she added, but the rest of the area can’t for much moderation before the weekend. Midcontinent field trading started later than usual Wednesday morning, the buyer said, adding, “I think they were waiting to get a feel for which way the Midwestern citygates were headed first.”

It’s not all that hot in the Pacific Northwest any more, with some areas seeing temperatures in the low 80s, a marketer said. That makes for a “pretty dead market” with softer prices, he went on. Another trader noted that it is still very hot in much of Southern California and east of California markets, which caused the border to be the only rising California point as buyers competed for Southwest basin supplies.

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