Overall prices tended to soften again Thursday, but the declines were considerably smaller than those on Wednesday in most cases. Except for a maintenance-related implosion in the Rockies market and a hefty drop on still-most-expensive Columbia-Appalachia (TCO), the great majority of points ranged from flat to less than a dime lower, and a couple saw moderate gains.

Fasten your seat belts, though. Considering low weather-related load, the sharp screen drops of the last couple of days and the typical exaggerated demand slump over a holiday weekend, one source looks for all cash numbers to be “pretty dang weak” Friday. He noted that several pipes were already warning of high linepack, expected low demand and highly limited storage flexibility that made them fear being overrun with gas.

Following a convention largely developed in the past year for when the first of a month falls on a weekend, Thursday’s swing trading was done for Friday and Saturday (Aug. 30-31), leaving Friday’s deals to cover Sunday through Tuesday (Sept. 1-3). Expressing his bear tendencies in a slightly different manner from the above source, a marketer said, “Cash tomorrow [Friday] is going to be mighty sloppy. It is hard enough getting utilities to tell us their needs in advance. Forecasting two days out on top of adding Labor Day makes it nearly impossible.”

Another marketer agreed with the weekend softening outlook, adding that he expects prices to remain weak through the early part of September, barring any events such as a new severe heat wave (unlikely, in his opinion) or a hurricane. Speaking of which, a group of thunderstorms got organized enough to qualify for tropical depression status. TD Four was more than 600 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands as of Thursday afternoon and moving westward. It was expected to gradually strengthen into a tropical storm, when it would be named Dolly.

The EIA contributed to the bearish mood with a Thursday morning report of 59 Bcf being injected into storage last week. The volume exceeded most prior expectations and sent the October futures contract to a loss of more than 15 cents on its first day as prompt month. “An unexpected EIA storage report can really mess with a trader’s day,” a Calgary-based producer said. “There was a fair volume of daily deals being done early on. Then, after the storage report came out, it all dried up and nothing got done. Volume just dries up if [the market] makes a big move based on a storage report. One side is just not willing to deal.”

Calling the 59 Bcf injection very bearish, a marketer commented that “I thought it would have been 40-50 Bcf, given that traders were pulling gas out of storage to take advantage of the price run-up last week.”

Northeast demand shrank drastically as almost no high temperatures were expected to rise above the 70s Friday. Markets were “few and far between” because the Northeast is so cool, one trader remarked. It was pretty chilly and rainy Thursday, but not enough to generate any heating load, a utility buyer in the region said. “It gives us a hint of fall being just around the corner.”

Columbia Gas (TCO) continued to top the price pile, but even it was weak, registering one of Thursday’s larger losses, a marketer said. With Northeast and Midwest market area demand fading away, some more gas is coming into TCO interconnects and cooling off the recent premium for Appalachian pool supplies, he added. Prices fell steadily during the morning, the marketer said; he believed he picked up the cheapest package at $3.60 late after numbers had started in the $3.90s.

As anticipated, Rockies prices were damaged again by the second of three approximately one-day Northwest outages scheduled for Friday (the first occurred Tuesday and the third is set for Sept. 4). “This one is a little further south of the one on the 27th and will back a huge amount of gas into the Rockies,” an area trader said. Prices that were already under a dollar sank even more, falling as low as 58 cents on Questar and at the Cheyenne Hub.

San Juan-Bondad and Sumas were the chief exceptions to the overall mild downturn with gains of about 30 cents and a dime respectively. Bondad benefited from relaxing San Juan and North Mainline capacity constraints on El Paso. Sumas, besides being a little short on normally available supply due to Westcoast’s Fort Nelson Gas Plant turnaround, got a boost from fulfilling Pacific Northwest demand that can’t be served by Rockies gas Friday.

Bidweek numbers were “a little softer than yesterday [Wednesday]” chiefly due to fresh screen weakness, a Midcontinent marketer said. He thought “just about everybody” had wrapped up September business by Thursday afternoon, leaving practically no last-minute deals to be done Friday as traders anticipate clearing out early for the Labor Day weekend.

A marketer said there didn’t seem to be much baseloading going on for September, which made him expect that the swing aftermarket will be active. A Northeast LDC buyers at least partially affirmed that perception, saying she had made no baseload purchases and that “we’ll play in the day-to-day market.”

Lack of liquidity was still an issue during this bidweek, one trader commented, but he was optimistic that the industry “will evolve out of it eventually.”

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