Several scattered flat to as much as about C20 cents higher points kept price movement mixed Tuesday, but not by much. More bearish signals were emerging as only one of the locations that wasn’t softer was up by more than about a nickel, and a moderate majority of the cash market recorded losses ranging from 2-3 cents to about 15 cents.

The lack of any serious tropical storm threat to offshore infrastructure, cooling load that is little more than moderate to normal for mid-August outside the Northeast and Pacific Northwest, and a still-lengthening string of futures weakness are considered likely to keep extending cash losses for at least a few more days.

September futures kept their loss streak going Tuesday with a further decline of 6.7 cents despite hefty gains by Nymex’s petroleum-based product offerings (see related story).

Although the remnants of Tropical Depression Ana were believed to have a chance of reaching the eastern end of the Gulf of Mexico, it most likely would be as little more than heavy rains and not as a production-threatening storm, although one forecasting service saw a chance of restrengthening if Ana does manage to reach the warm GOM waters (see related story). The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the “disorganized” system was moving to the west Tuesday and will be spreading over the remainder of Cuba, the Bahamas and southern Florida during the next day or so; being over land masses tends to keep tropical disturbances weak.

Meanwhile, NHC said Hurricane Bill could become a major storm (Category Three or higher), but it was even less likely to disrupt offshore production than what was left of Ana. The projected tracking of Bill, which was still about 700 miles east of the Leeward Islands late Tuesday, has it approaching Bermuda by late Friday and staying well out to sea.

Westcoast reported high linepack levels throughout its system Tuesday, which tended to make Westcoast Station 2’s recording the day’s biggest price gain a bit difficult to understand. Sumas was more responsive to the excess linepack in dropping a few pennies. even with very hot weather arriving in much of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, OR, should reach the century mark in temperatures Wednesday, said forecasting service Weather Central, while Seattle can expect at a more moderate but still unusually warm 93.

On the other hand, Florida Gas Transmission issued an Overage Alert Day (see Transportation Notes) at least partly due to low linepack. Production-area numbers into Florida Gas were flat to slightly up or down. The Florida citygate, which had seen Monday’s biggest loss by far prior to the alert being issued, still fell about another Tuesday.

There’s certainly a fair amount of air conditioning demand in the South, but a tad less than for a normal August with few locations east of Texas-Oklahoma getting above the low 90s. The Northeast is seeing a slight retreat in mercury levels Wednesday but will still be warmer than usual, while most of the Midwest is staying comfortable with highs in the low 80s or less.

Area weather currently is in a holding pattern, a Midwest utility buyer said, and forecasters look for current mild highs of just above 80 to continue at least through the weekend. Stormy conditions are helping keep Midwestern temperatures mostly moderate, he said, with overnight lows getting as cool as the 50s.

The buyer is looking for next week’s bidweek period to be especially quiet for him because he has “pretty much wrapped up all September baseload business already,” although he may need to pick up one additional package for the east end of the utility’s system. He reported doing all deals in the range of index flat to index minus 1 cent. Since September is about as “shoulderly” as a shoulder month gets, it’s looking like another bidweek of lower prices is coming up, he said.

The Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/) recorded yet another increase in the number of drilling rigs actively searching for natural gas in the U.S. during the week ending Aug. 14. Up until a few weeks ago the tally had been nearly all downward this year. Baker Hughes said the most recent gain of seven rigs to 688 consisted of additions of six onshore and one in the Gulf of Mexico. The total is now up 3% from a month earlier but 57% less than the year-ago level.

Citi Futures Perspective analyst Tim Evans said he expects a net storage addition of 67 Bcf to be announced for the week ending Aug. 14, to be followed by further builds of 62 Bcf and 72 Bcf in the weeks ending Aug. 21 and Aug. 28, respectively.

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