Flat numbers reigned across much of the market Tuesday, as a majority of points stayed within about a nickel up or down from unchanged. The gains tended to outweigh the losses, however, and most of the larger upticks occurred in the Rockies. Not coincidentally, the West remained the only market area experiencing severe summer heat.

A couple of sources suspected “storm hype” as the basis for another screen gain (8.8 cents) and the overall mild firmness in cash numbers, especially in the East. A low-pressure system about 550 miles east of the southern Florida coast was being monitored and had a chance of becoming a tropical depression over the next day or two, The Weather Channel said. There was also a possibility of the system getting into the Gulf of Mexico late this week, TWC said.

The key word for a Gulf Coast marketer was the “potential” of a tropical depression. “That’s about the only thing I can see propping up prices today [Tuesday],” he said. Actually, he went on, it’s probably only “wishful thinking” about a tropical storm on the part of some bullish types that kept the cash market from sinking. As comparatively mild as Texas temperatures had gotten since last week, he was unable to find any hot weather justification for firm quotes. Indeed, from Texas across the South, highs above 90 degrees were getting rather scarce Tuesday. Even Houston’s peak temperature was forecast at 87.

Utility buyers in both the Midwest and Northeast acknowledged that slightly warmer weather was approaching in their respective regions, but neither saw the change as significant enough to keep prices from falling in what they agreed was an eastern market dominated by fairly weak fundamentals. “Put me down as one who thinks it’s just storm hype being used for fake bullishness,” said the Midwest source. “I just wish prices would go down as quickly as they go up.”

And the Northeast buyer commented, “Yes, it’s getting a little warmer here but not really hot.”

However, a Midcontinent marketer noted that “after a bit of a swing market hiatus, we got some daily demand back from industry folks, refineries and what not. It feels good to be active in the market again. I don’t mind holding back a little, but I can only take watching from the sidelines for so long.”

Thermometer readings in the 90s and 100s continued to dominate western weather from the Upper Plains, Rockies and desert Southwest westward. The primary change from previous hot weeks in the West is that very hot weather is getting closer to the Pacific Coast, particularly in Southern California, a trader pointed out. However, he noted that Permian Basin and Waha numbers were the region’s weakest, dropping a nickel or more due both to the lifting of an Unauthorized Overpull Penalty notice by El Paso (see Transportation Notes) and less power generation in the intrastate Texas market.

“We’re not moving any gas on NGPL this month,” said a Gulf Coast producer. “We have production that can be moved around and we’re putting it on Columbia [Gulf] from Sea Robin to go north. We can use either pipe [NGPL or Columbia Gulf] and sometimes it is an easy decision, like when NGPL-Louisiana is 13 cents below the [Henry] Hub. It’s a little more expensive generally, but we made a semi-contractual agreement to use the new [Sea Robin-Columbia Gulf] interconnect. It’s one of those ‘if you build it, we will come’ kind of deals.”

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