A marketer had correctly predicted Tuesday that futures strength that day would jump-start a rally in the overall cash market Wednesday. But the big jumps at nearly all points Wednesday seemed out of proportion to the previous day’s 16.1-cent Nymex gain, especially when no major heat waves or tropical storm concerns were in sight.

Be that as it may, a large majority of points spiked by anywhere from about 20 cents to 65 cents or so (NGPL Amarillo Mainline, which had seen an unusually large jump of half a dollar on Tuesday, was an exception Wednesday in rising a little less than a nickel). Most Rockies points joined in the overall rally in trying to escape the extreme depths they had experienced Tuesday, although their averages still were little more than a dollar or less.

A couple of Northwest points and Opal continued to sink.

Despite the lack of fundamental weather support for cash, one source suggested that expectations of another relatively meager storage injection report Thursday may have bolstered the futures impact on Wednesday’s cash market. And screen support will continue for Thursday after October futures rose another 17.6 cents Wednesday in what was suggested as being related to gains in the petroleum product futures market.

There were a couple of other seeming contradictions in Wednesday’s price movement. Florida Gas Zone 3 and the Florida citygate fell about a quarter and 70 cents, respectively, despite Florida Gas Transmission issuing an Overage Alert Day due to hot weather in the Sunshine State. However, the drops may have been influenced by maintenance constraints starting Thursday at two locations on the FGT system (see Transportation Notes).

And El Paso’s two San Juan Basin pools made the largest advances in spite of the remnants of Hurricane Henriette (which was making its second landfall on the Mexican mainland Wednesday after crossing the Baja California peninsula) being expected to bring cooling rains to the desert Southwest Thursday and ending a reign of triple-digit high temperatures. Phoenix, forecast to hit 105 degrees Wednesday, was predicted to drop to a peak of 97 Thursday.

Former Hurricane Felix was dying out as a tropical depression over Honduras early Wednesday and the National Hurricane Center said it had issued its final Felix advisory.

Forecasters were monitoring a low-pressure area between Bermuda and Florida that The Weather Channel (TWC) said had the potential to develop into a tropical or subtropical storm over the next day or two. However, TWC added that it was likely to push back toward the southeast coast of the U.S., which likely would lessen its threat to the Gulf of Mexico.

A Calgary-based producer was frank in saying, “I don’t know why” there was so much strength in the cash market Wednesday. He agreed that the prior-day futures boost did not seem to be enough to produce cash gains that were more than 40 cents or greater, but suggested that maybe traders were putting more stock in that Atlantic low-pressure area than it was worth. There were good spreads between Alberta and the Chicago citygate Wednesday, the producer said, so his company made some money on transporting gas.

Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research is looking for a storage injection of 42 Bcf to be reported for the week ending Aug. 31. Reuters news service said its survey of 20 industry analysts found an average expectation of a 46 Bcf build, with estimates ranging from 37 to 57 Bcf. Bentek Energy was at the low end of forecasts, weighing in with a 36 Bcf projection.

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