Despite some flat points here and there, the overall cash market continued to rise Thursday with gains that were mostly in single digits but reached nearly 15 cents in a few cases. And although a couple of sources confessed to seeing the weekend market as a tough call, majority sentiment looks for further price firmness Friday in spite of cold front forecasts for the Midwest and Northeast.

Major strength throughout the energy futures complex Thursday will lend support to cash gas Friday, a Gulf Coast trader said. Although the Energy Information Administration’s report of a 78 Bcf injection last week jibed well with many prior expectations, Nymex traders gave it a bullish response and pushed the September natural gas contract to a daily gain of nearly 16 cents. And supply worries spurred spikes in oil and gasoline futures, with crude oil for October settling just 12 cents shy of $32/bbl.

Highs in the Calgary area were mild in the low 80s Thursday and due to get even cooler this weekend, a producer said. Normally that and approaching cooldowns in the northern U.S. market areas, along with the typical weekend dip in industrial load, would induce a bearish price outlook Friday. “But unless Nymex takes a dive real early Friday, I would expect cash to go up 10-15 cents.” A strong indicator for such an outlook was the late uptick in cash numbers Thursday for the few deals remaining to be done following issuance of the EIA report, he said, noting that the late strength stretched daily ranges farther than they had been for most trades.

A Midwest utility buyer said she was unsure of Friday’s price direction. Thursday was just about the hottest day of the summer for the region, she said, but a front coming in from Canada could begin a cooling trend in the region as early as Friday. Thus she had to weigh bearish weather against the screen’s bullishness. “I had thought they [prices] would go down today [Thursday], but that obviously didn’t happen.”

A utility buyer in the Northeast had a similar perspective. She said she had been hoping for lower prices Friday based on forecasts for fall-like weather this weekend, “but I’m not so sure now.”

A trader normally active in the New England market said he had no fixed prices to report because he was still dealing with production problems at the Sable Offshore Energy Project (see Daily GPI, Aug. 19).

Sonat provided a hint of price strength in the final week of August in estimating that its cumulative system cash-out imbalance for the month was 603,826 dekatherms short as of Aug. 19.

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