Cash prices had continued to put up a brave front through Monday with modest firmness overall, but the bullish facade could not be maintained Tuesday. Instead, losses that were mostly measured in double digits reigned across the board as more prior-day futures softness, a downgrade of prospects for the season’s first named tropical storm entering the Gulf of Mexico and forecasts of small reductions of cooling load in several regions ganged up on the physical market.

Drops in the range of 20-30 cents were most common in a market where all locations fell between about a nickel and 60 cents or so. The Florida citygate, where slight cooling trends had prompted Florida Gas Transmission to end an Overage Alert Day over the weekend, still commanded the highest numbers but was retreating rapidly to levels much closer to those of the Northeast.

The cash market still cannot look to Nymex for any next-day support after July futures fell for the third straight day Tuesday — this time by 11.7 cents (see related story).

One of the bearish signals for Tuesday’s market came from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), which after saying Monday chances of development for a Caribbean Sea tropical wave had risen as high as 40% at one point, downgraded those prospects to “low” (20%) Tuesday. Although NHC said the wave had become less organized as it reached the central Caribbean, environmental conditions were “expected to become more conducive for slow development of this system over the next several days as it moves west-northwestward at about 10 mph.”

Cooling demand, while still fairly strong as many points will reach the high 90s to mid 100s Wednesday across much of the southern U.S., is in decline. Even some parts of the South will be falling into the high 80s, while rainy forecasts will depress heat levels in the Northeast and Midwest. Even peak temperatures in parts of the Rockies such as Denver will be in retreat as cool to mild conditions remain the watchwords for the Canadian and western U.S. outlook.

Excess supply issues may dog western markets later this week. Although PG&E did not issue an OFO, it projected that California Gas Transmission system linepack likely will begin exceeding target levels as early as Thursday. Also, El Paso said it had set the probability of declaring a Strained Operating Condition or Critical Operating Condition to moderate due to high linepack.

It was “88 and humid” at mid-afternoon Tuesday, said a Midwest utility buyer, but with “some rain” in the forecast for most days through the end of the week, things should cool off a little bit. However, he was somewhat dubious about how much rain might occur, saying his area had already experienced much-above-normal precipitation for June.

Also, his company had fairly decent power generation load currently, the buyer said, and although the expectations of rain might quench that to some extent, it “always gets a little steamy after the sun comes out again.”

He noted a quiet market for the time being, with a lot of gas traders (many from the Midwest) currently in Omaha, NE, for the College World Series and Omaha Gas Association meetings.

Stephen Smith of Stephen Smith Energy Associates said Tuesday he is projecting a storage build of 80 Bcf for the week ending June 18, which he had revised upward from an earlier estimate of 72 Bcf. IAF Advisors analyst Kyle Cooper also looks for an 80 Bcf addition, which he said falls short of comparable numbers of 94 Bcf, 91 Bcf and 86 Bcf in the year-ago, three-year average and five-year average reports, respectively.

As if trying to make the consensus unanimous, Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Research also weighed in Tuesday afternoon with an estimate of 80 Bcf.

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