The market didn’t stray from the seesaw pattern it had set earlier in the week. After starting out Monday with losses that often were about a dime or higher, prices had rallied somewhat to a near-flat performance Tuesday before yielding to small declines Wednesday. They reversed course again Thursday with mostly small upticks in spite of seeing no appreciable increases in cooling load.

The previous day’s scant gain of 0.1 cent by September futures had essentially no influence on the cash market, and generally moderate weather forecasts were largely maintaining the status quo or even seeing highs retreat a few degrees in the Rockies. Still, a large majority of locations were flat to about a nickel higher. The few scattered losses ranged from 2-3 cents to a dime or so.

A 50 Bcf storage injection reported for the week ending Aug. 12 by the Energy Information Administration slightly surpassed analysts’ consensus estimates in the mid to upper 40s Bcf. Not surprisingly, considering other generally bearish influences already weighing on the gas market, Nymex traders pushed prompt-month futures 4.1 cents lower on the day (see related story).

Essentially flat showings by both Henry Hub and futures left the Hub maintaining about a nickel premium over the prompt-month Nymex contract.

It was too early to tell whether the lengthy outages of two Enterprise Products Partners natural gas liquids lines from Conway, KS, to the Minnesota area (see related story) would have any market impact. A Midwest marketer said they wouldn’t have any direct effect on his company since it deals only in dry gas. But eventually there could be some ancillary impact from operational backups at regional processing plants because of the reduced takeaway capacity.

Although a tropical wave about 200 miles east-northeast of Cape Gracias a Dios, Nicaragua, Thursday afternoon was rated as having an 80% chance of becoming a tropical depression that evening, there was almost no chance of it impacting Gulf of Mexico production. The system’s generally westward movement would result in landfall in the vicinity of the coastal border between Honduras and Nicaragua. The National Hurricane Center also was monitoring a large tropical wave moving west about midway between the Cape Verde Islands and the Lesser Antilles but accorded it development odds of only 10%.

Flat to slightly higher quotes dominated the Northeast market even with forecasts of rain and a cold front Friday causing highs to either see little change or cool down slightly. Most of the South is staying only middling hot for mid-August in the low to mid 90s, with the corridor from Texas/Oklahoma through the desert Southwest still the market’s only remaining bastion of significant heat. Otherwise, except for parts of the Rockies still peaking in the upper 80s despite a modest cooling trend, the rest of the market from the Midwest through the West Coast and into lower Canada can expect further relatively moderate conditions with highs ranging from the upper 60s in Western Canada through the mid 80s at some Midwest locations.

The National Weather Service continues to look for above-normal and below-normal temperatures in the western and eastern thirds, respectively, of the U.S. through the end of August, while the central third can expect normal conditions.

Henry Hub was flat after dropping 6 cents the day before, but IntercontinentalExchange said Hub volumes on its trading platform fell substantially from 690,100 MMBtu Wednesday to 562,000 MMBtu Thursday.

A Texas marketer said he and co-workers were “scratching our heads” about the moderately revitalized prices since they didn’t seem to have any justification from weather-based demand. However, he did note AccuWeather.com’s reporting the Boston area reaching peak temperatures in the upper 80s Thursday, higher than anticipated, which could have resulted in some extra purchases for resolution of unexpected imbalances.

He was a bit surprised at how mildly bearish the Nymex reaction to the storage report was but observed that the actual build wasn’t much higher than expectations. Who would have expected August to turn out being the mildest month of the summer so far? he said.

A marketer in the Upper Midwest said her company was buying only a little daily gas through the end of August, and nearly all of that is targeted for filling clients’ storage accounts. Because of the way the economics have worked out, it hasn’t made Consumers Energy citygate purchases for a long time now, relying instead on Michcon deliveries, she added.

It’s too early to say summer is already over, the marketer said, but it doesn’t look like any major heat will be returning to the Upper Midwest in the foreseeable future.

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