Prices continued to sink at a large majority of points Tuesday, but mostly by small amounts, as overall weather fundamentals and prior-day futures guidance stayed weak for the cash market. The impending scarcity of storage injection options was another bearish influence.

Several scattered flat points averted an across the board run of declines; otherwise losses ranged from 2-3 cents to about 15 cents. Most movement was in single digits.

Cash prices still can’t count on screen support anytime soon. The October futures contract was getting even weaker than its prompt-month predecessor, shedding another 15.6 cents Tuesday to sink to $2.821 (see related story); September settled at $2.843 last Thursday.

The desert Southwest and interior California will remain the major sources of air conditioning load Wednesday; Texas will continue to contribute, but even there it is cooling somewhat to maximum temperatures in the low to mid 90s. The rest of the South will remain fairly moderate for early September with peaks in the 80s, while the Rockies and much of Western Canada will be a little above normal in reaching the 80s.

The rest of North America will be mild to cool with highs generally around 80 or less.

It was too early to make a good call on its potential production threat, but the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said a low-pressure area about 260 miles east of Leeward Islands early Tuesday afternoon “could be developing a well defined surface center.” Late in the afternoon NHC said the system had been upgraded to Tropical Storm Erika. The agency couldn’t tell at that point whether the system might reach the Gulf of Mexico or do a Bill/Danny-style trek up the East Coast, although the latter was indicated in the early projected tracking.

There are no spot price rallies in sight at this time, in the perception of a Houston-based marketer. Overall weather forecasts are still bearish, he noted, and even if any major weather-based demand did come along, the current high levels of storage likely would negate any upward price impact.

A low-inventory OFO may be upcoming for PG&E. Although it projected that linepack would remain just above its minimum target level Wednesday, it expected below-minimum volumes on Thursday and Friday.

However, a western trader said her staff was wondering about the low-linepack forecast for PG&E’s California Gas Transmission system. Interior California will stay fairly hot in mid 90s to 100 area through at least Wednesday, she said, but there were no signs of any major linepack-draining changes upcoming. She didn’t expect the low-linepack forecast to cause a price rally, saying there were plenty of western supplies being bid into the market.

In its six- to 10-day forecast for the Sept. 7-11 period, the National Weather Service looks for above-normal temperatures in the southern half of the Florida peninsula; in virtually all of Texas along with most of New Mexico; and in the Northeast as far southward as the northeast corner of North Carolina and westward through the Upper Midwest to central North Dakota. The agency predicted below-normal readings in most of the Pacific Northwest to the eastern edges of Montana and Wyoming and into central Colorado, and in nearly all of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee along with the eastern half of Mississippi and the western edges of the Carolinas.

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