The arrival of real summer heat tied with overwhelming prior-day screen support helped push the nation’s cash market points unanimously higher Tuesday for the second consecutive day. Most gains across the country ranged 30-50 cents.

Tuesday’s strength did not come as much of a surprise to traders who witnessed Monday’s 32.5-cent July natural gas futures hike. Nor did it surprise those living in the South and West, who have recently begun to experience true summer temperatures.

“We are supposed to see some real heat in the West beginning Wednesday,” said a West Coast buyer. “Currently the marine layer is holding in, so temps are a little bit lower, but that is expected to lift. We are definitely saying goodbye to the cold weather for a while. We are going to start seeing some major generation load in Arizona and after a few days we’ll see it in California. I think prices will surely begin to reflect this.”

The cash market was very strong nationally on Tuesday, the buyer said. “High water rises all boats. We were able to see a little bit of a spread from the north coming down from Canada, which allowed us to take a better look at what was coming into the Pacific Northwest. Basically it was weak going east, so they had a lot of supply that moved south to us.

“It looks like maintenance came off on the TransColorado piece, so it freed up anything in the San Juan Blanco area. People were able to get supply in. However, there is maintenance on El Paso that is causing some cuts, so there was more activity on Transwestern. El Paso was still strong because the cuts were not as deep as anticipated.”

While having overwhelming support from Monday’s futures market action, cash market traders might be in for a dip in prices on Wednesday after July natural gas futures dropped 5.3 cents to $4.129 on Tuesday (see related story). The West Coast buyer isn’t so sure, however.

“The futures market is calling a lot of the shots here, but the trend is hard to nail down,” the buyer said. “Sure it ran up 30-plus cents Monday, but we saw some pullbacks on Tuesday. The important thing is everything from July out is still over $4, so we are starting to see some strength heading out the calendar. November and out is now $5 and above. I think we’ll probably see prices higher again Wednesday.”

The short-term weather forecasts showed no real change from Monday’s versions. The National Weather Service said that from June 22 to 26, below-normal conditions would only be seen in West Coast states and the Northeast while a large square of territory in the central United States would see above-normal readings.

The forecast for June 24-30 shows the central third of the country experiencing above-normal temperatures while the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast remain colder than normal.

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