Most eastern markets drifted mildly lower Monday, with most declines in single digits and only a few barely surpassing a dime. The West tended to range from flat to moderately higher in the Rockies and Southwest basins, accompanied by larger California gains. It wasn’t that the West was so strong, sources said, but rather that the region was climbing back out of the deep price holes it had dug for itself Friday.

The screen was an obvious negative influence on cash, nearly matching Friday’s plunge in the vicinity of 18 cents, one marketer noted. Thermometers were inching higher again in several eastern market areas, but not by enough to have significant market impact.

Temperatures will peak in the 90s throughout the week from the Midcontinent into much of the Midwest, a trader said, “but it doesn’t make much difference. Just about all the peaker plants are already firing up, so you can’t squeeze any more load out of them. There’s a couple more nukes online in the Midwest than there were at this time last year.” Storage is already basically full for all intents and purposes, he added, “so essentially you just have a bunch of marketing companies flipping gas back and forth between themselves.”

A Gulf Coast producer could see no bullish factors on the horizon, especially with what is expected to be another AGA storage injection figure around 100 Bcf approaching. Tropical Depression 2 really had no business pushing prices higher last Thursday because it was so remote, he said, “but then the gas market is kind of funny. You sell the hype and buy the reality.” The producer said Gulf Coast prices were tailing off in late activity, a trend also reported by a Rockies marketer.

Power prices remain the primary driver of the California market, according to one trader. Power was very weak for today, he said, quoting on-peak numbers of $40-42/MWh and off-peak around $30. August basis has been taking a big hit lately, he said. Basis at the PG&E citygate dropped under a dollar to plus 80-85 cents Monday. At the beginning of last week it had been as high as plus $2.25-50, he said.

The National Weather Service had virtually nothing to offer would-be bulls. In its forecast for the period starting Saturday, other than a swath of above normal temperatures from New Mexico through eastern Colorado into Kansas and Nebraska, NWS could find only a couple of small patches in North Texas and extreme South Texas where hotter than normal weather is likely.

Several sources were in consensus that without a hurricane or widespread heat waves to stir things up, the market is in a midsummer doldrums period for the foreseeable future. A lot of traders are taking vacation time now or in the next few weeks, a Gulf Coast marketer said. “The ones still in the office are sitting on their hands with not much going on.” The marketer looks for mostly a slow slide downhill in the next couple of weeks, “but I don’t see any huge downturn coming up. Technicals are definitely winning out over fundamentals lately.”

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