Prices ranged from flat to down a little more than a dime in nearly all cases Wednesday; however, San Juan Basin numbers plunged by 40 cents. Most of the declines were fairly small at around a nickel or less.

Sources had anticipated falling prices after the screen waited until Tuesday afternoon to realize its loss of a dime that day. But they also said fundamental weather demand was generally weak as hot temperatures remain confined to the southern half of the U.S.

Opinion was mixed on whether cash will be able to rally again Thursday following Wednesday’s uptick of nearly 11 cents in natural gas futures (the crude oil and heating oil contracts also continued to display strength). “A lot of people were surprised by the Nymex run-up,” said one trader. “I have doubts, though, that cash will try to play catch-up Thursday, at least in my Midwest market area. The weather forecasts are just too weak to sustain these high prices.”

However, a western marketer thinks there’s a “good chance” of cash quotes following the screen higher Thursday in a next-day response, as they often have been wont to do in recent weeks when a significant screen change happens late in the day. She explained her thinking: “We’ve had weak fundamentals before on occasions when cash still managed to rise the day after the screen did. Of course, a bearish storage report could halt any rebound in its tracks, but maybe not, since most cash deals get done before EIA issues the report” on Thursday morning.

Most prior guesses on this week’s storage report have centered on the 40-50 Bcf range.

Several of Wednesday’s flat numbers were at Northeast citygates, which may have been related to sharp increases of $10-plus in next-day power prices in the PJM-West and Nepool (New England) areas. The electricity spikes mystified at least one gas trader, however, since a cold front moving into the northern edge of the Northeast was forecast to be pushing cooling thunderstorms ahead of it.

Some pipeline maintenance is creating capacity constraints in San Juan Basin and along El Paso’s North Mainline, a marketer noted, but she didn’t think it was enough to justify Wednesday’s big dive in basin prices. After starting the day down about a quarter or so in the high $2.20s, San Juan-Blanco fell below $2.10 in late deals, she said.

Another source said trading at the Southern California border gets “really lackluster” when price dip below NGI‘s first-of-month $2.92 index as they did Wednesday. “About the only people you can sell to at the border these days are storage buyers,” he added. However, after dipping to either side of $2.90 in most deals, the border rebounded at the end with one late trade late at $2.98. “I have to believe that was a short squeeze,” the source said.

Sumas quotes matched the overall market norm by falling only about a nickel despite Westcoast’s McMahon Plant being nearly back up to 100% capacity Thursday following completion of its annual turnaround maintenance. The plant was processing 390 MMcf/d of residue gas as of mid-afternoon Wednesday, the pipeline said.

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