The cash market was close to evenly divided on rising and falling numbers Monday, with a majority of points straying no further than about a nickel in either direction from unchanged.

Flat quotes were common in most regions, although the California and Rockies/Pacific Northwest markets were almost solidly higher. The Midcontinent/Midwest and West tended to see most of the flat to about a dime higher numbers. Their support was derived from the previous Friday’s 3-cent futures gain, the return of industrial load from its usual weekend hiatus, and marginal gains in heating load as temperatures turned cooler in some sections such as the Midwest, California and the Pacific Northwest.

Not all of the West was cooling, though. Despite mountain-area snow forecasts, the lower elevations of the Rockies were due to warm up briefly into the low to mid 80s for a couple of days starting Tuesday, and much of the desert Southwest would continue to sizzle, with Phoenix expecting another high in the mid 100s Tuesday.

The Gulf Coast, and to a lesser extent the Northeast, constituted the softest markets, with losses ranging from 2-3 cents to about a dime. Both the Northeast and South were about to enter cooling periods, but mostly with comfortable to cool peak temperatures on either side of the 70 area. Only Florida and Texas/Oklahoma were due to stay fairly warm for a while longer, while a substantial amount of heating load would be vanishing Tuesday in the South.

Tuesday’s cash trading for the last day of September will have negative futures guidance after the October contract expired Monday with a loss of 25.5 cents (see related story).

Late Friday the National Hurricane Center designated Tropical Depression 8 west of the Cape Verde Islands, but the system dissipated during the weekend and the agency had no new Atlantic tropical activity of any significance to report Monday.

Williams Field Services will lose an estimated 350 MMcf/d of processing capacity as it repairs a heat exchanger leak on the Turbo Expander Plant 5 unit at its Opal Hub Plant in Wyoming Tuesday and Wednesday (see Daily GPI, Sept. 25).

How much of that gas will be added into the Rockies market is rather uncertain, especially in light of the region’s mild price firmness Monday despite mild weather forecasts, said a Rockies producer. It depends on how rich the gas is, how tolerant the pipelines are on liquids in the gas stream and what alternate processing options are available to suppliers, he said. “But in our experience, every time there’s an Opal cutback, it tends to weaken Rockies prices,” he added.

His region will stay mild for the most Tuesday and Wednesday, the producer said, but will turn colder after midweek.

He said his company is doing more fixed-price deals than usual for October. He noted the injection restrictions that are scheduled at the Clay Basin and Jackson Prairie storage facilities in the first few days of the month, and said “we’re afraid of what might happen in the spot market later” when there’s no more injection capacity left.

A Midwest marketer said temperatures were dropping Monday following a pleasant Sunday. She said she was still holding off on firing up her furnace, but some of her neighbors might not be.

She noted that MichCon has been warning customers recently to stay in balance because the utility has little storage capacity available.

The marketer reported paying last-day settlement basis for October of plus 9 cents into Consumers Energy and plus 9.5 cents into MichCon.

It may not last, but a reversal of the steep U.S. decline in gas-seeking drilling rigs that dominated the first seven months of the year continued unabated during the week ending Sept. 25. Five more rigs joined the search in that week, raising the total to 710, according to the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count. The onshore and offshore sectors saw additions of four and one, respectively, the oilpatch services company said. Its latest tally is up 2% from a month earlier but 54% less than the year-ago level.

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