Falling points modestly outnumbered rising ones Wednesday as forecasts of cooling trends in several areas vied for influence with warming trends in other areas, continuing hot weather across most of the southern half of the U.S. and a prior-day futures gain of 15.2 cents. Most of the losses were considerably larger than the gains, so overall softness was clearly dominant.

A little fewer than half of all trading points were flat to a little more than a quarter higher. The rest recorded drops ranging from 2-3 cents to about 70 cents. Rockies points, along with San Juan Basin and Sumas in the Pacific Northwest, garnered the lion’s share of the largest declines.

Wednesday’s divided price movement is expected to lead to big drops in Thursday’s trading. Transco was the latest of several pipelines that have been warning shippers of anticipated very low market-area demand during the Fourth of July weekend. In addition, there is the extra decline of industrial load during a long holiday weekend, and August futures ended this week’s rising streak with a drop of 11.6 cents Wednesday.

After starting the week with highs in the mid 90s, the Rockies is backtracking now with Denver expected to peak around 81 degrees Thursday. Temperatures also are receding in much of the Midwest, with both Chicago and Detroit predicted to be limited to the mid 70s.

On the other hand, thermometer levels will continue to rise in the Northeast Thursday, with some locations such as Philadelphia rivaling the South with a predicted high in the low 90s. Conditions will remain largely unchanged in the South itself, with predicted highs on either side of 90.

Although the Midcontinent is staying hot, the cooling off of its primary market area in the Midwest led to losses at all production-area points.

PG&E kept a high-inventory OFO in place through at least Thursday, resulting in further drops of a little less than a dime and about 15 cents at Malin and the PG&E citygate, respectively.

Despite Florida Gas Transmission ending an Overage Alert Day, quotes were up by a little more than a nickel and a little more than a dime at Florida Gas Zone 3 and the Florida citygate, respectively. However, Florida Gas Zones 1 and 2 were softer.

At least one source is dismayed that the gas market is paying so much attention to a tropical wave in eastern Atlantic that isn’t expected to get near the Gulf of Mexico. But what the National Hurricane Center deemed a “well defined” tropical wave about 300 miles southeast of the Cape Verde Island as of Wednesday morning had the potential to become a tropical depression over the next couple of days as it continues to move westward at about 15 mph.

A utility buyer in the South said his company was getting prepared for “raising the flag on these high gas prices;” that is, joining many other utilities around the nation in warning customers of much higher natural gas bills as the winter approaches. However, his company will wait until the end of summer to send its notice on the subject “so customers won’t forget before winter,” the buyer said.

The utility got through June adhering strictly to its storage injection schedule, he continued, and expects to do the same in July. “The way we hedged it, [gas prices at] the front end of the summer were cheaper than in the back end,” so the utility’s injections will be tapering off sharply in September and October.

A marketer in the Upper Midwest said local temperatures will be getting into the low 80s during the weekend, but lately overnight readings have been in the 50s, and that’s “pretty darn cool” for this time of the year. Her company certainly didn’t like the dollar-plus spikes in most July first-of-month indexes, she added.

The National Weather Service (NWS) doesn’t expect any below-normal temperatures in the Lower 48 states during the July 7-11 workweek. It predicts above-normal readings almost everywhere west of a line running to the south-southwest from central Minnesota to West Texas; normal conditions are due in the western third of Washington state and the northwest corner of Oregon, NWS said. Except for the northern third of Maine, its forecast also calls for above-normal temperatures in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic as far south as the northeast corner of North Carolina.

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