As Sonny and Cher came close to singing, “The heat goes on.” Yet despite another day Wednesday of searing hot weather in key market areas with prospects for more of the same today, the overall market was moderately softer. A screen advance of about a nickel failed to lend support to cash prices.

After many months of electrical emergency notices emanating from California, it was the turn of the other coast Wednesday. New York’s Long Island Power Authority issued a stage one power alert asking customers in its service territory to curb their usage of electricity. In spite of that and the New York Independent System Operator projecting record power demand in the state, area gas prices slipped slightly, except for a tiny gain at Transco Zone 6 (non-New York City).

A Northeast gas trader said the heat created a super-busy day for him, but he liked the price volatility. “It lets us make money,” he explained. Numbers were especially “all over the place” at Transco Zone 6-NYC. EnronOnline came out first thing in the morning with Zone 6-NYC offered at $4.15, he said, but the price jumped immediately in nickel increments to around $4.40. From there delivered quotes gradually worked their way down to the $3.60s in late deals as buying faded out, the trader said.

The Upper Midwest could start getting some heat relief as early as today, but most of the region will have to wait until Friday for a cold front to reach it. The rainy remnants of Tropical Storm Barry were cooling off part of the Southeast centered around northern Mississippi; otherwise it’s still the dog days of summer from Texas northward through the Plains states. But as a Texas intrastate buyer commented, “We’re grateful that prices are staying below first-of-month indexes in this kind of weather.”

Western markets were still pretty quiet, a marketer said, but might get more active again with many traders returning from the Rocky Mountains gas conference in Denver. A few Rockies pipes achieved small price gains that the marketer attributed to late run-ups when a few buyers got caught in short supply positions. California tended to register most of Wednesday’s larger declines in the teens.

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