This week’s uptrend in cash prices continued Wednesday butclearly showed signs of losing momentum. Several points in variousmarkets leveled off with flat showings, and the gains were small,generally less than 4 cents. PG&E citygates saw the day’s mostnotable decline of more than a nickel due to a high-inventory OFOby the utility that is effective today and carries a stringent 3%tolerance for positive imbalances.

Market influences were little changed from earlier in the week.Although forecasts of renewed heat waves remain in place, at thispoint they’re still just unfulfilled forecasts (“theory only, thatis”) in most regions outside the South and lower Midcontinent,where hot and muggy weather is a harsh reality, one trader said.Some strength in Tuesday afternoon’s Access futures tradingprovided early support for cash Wednesday, according to a marketer,but the screen finally succumbed to selling pressure to snap itsrising streak of more than a week with a loss of a little under anickel.

There is still significant storage demand out there, a Texassource said, “but I think cash has ridden that horse about as highup the [price] mountain as it can,” at least for a while. Anaggregator considered AGA’s afternoon report of 45 Bcf in storageinjections last week neutral to slightly bullish.

Sumas quotes tended to run slightly higher than domestic pricesinto Northwest, but a couple of traders said a turnaround outage ofWestcoast’s big McMahon Plant essentially is a market non-event.Most people planned well ahead for the McMahon constraint, whichbegan Monday and doesn’t begin to ease until Aug. 19, and PacificNorthwest demand is fairly weak anyway, they said. Under thoseconditions, one source expressed surprise at hearing Sumas as highas the mid $2.20s.

Staffers at Questar Energy Trading and Duke Energy got someexcitement and a scare from a tornado that touched down in downtownSalt Lake City Wednesday morning, but both marketers reported nopersonal injuries or damage to their facilities. The twisterdamaged the roof of Delta Center, home of basketball’s Utah Jazzand in the next block over from Duke, and injured several people atthe nearby Wyndham Hotel. QET is about five blocks from DeltaCenter.

Hurricane season, which started June 1, is off to its typical slowstart, but recent news reports have quoted government scientists assaying this is likely to be a stormier season than usual starting asearly as next week (see related story thisissue).

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