While cooling load is due to grow in some areas Thursday and recede in others, the market saw too much overall weakness in weather fundamentals to sustain Tuesday’s general rally and fell at most points Wednesday. In addition, the screen had provided minuscule negative guidance for cash prices with a 1.9-cent drop by September futures Tuesday, and the perception of potential tropical storm threats to Gulf of Mexico production retreated somewhat.

There were again exceptions to the majority price direction as a few points were flat to about C60 cents higher. But a large majority of the market recorded losses ranging from a couple of pennies to about 35 cents.

A 12.6-cent rebound by prompt-month futures Wednesday will afford the cash market a chance to recover some lost price ground Thursday.

Sumas and Westcoast Station 2 saw the two largest upticks as hot weather is about to return to their primary market area of the Pacific Northwest. The expected high of 85 Wednesday in Portland, OR, is forecast to rise to the mid 90s Thursday. But meanwhile Rocky Mountain highs are moving considerably lower, with Denver and Cheyenne, WY, predicted to peak Thursday in the low 80s and mid 70s, respectively.

Heavy rains that had been suppressing heat levels in the eastern half of the South will be ending Thursday except in northern Florida, allowing warmer weather to return, although temperatures will still be below seasonal norms. For example, Charlotte, NC, which peaked around 75 Wednesday, will get about 10 degrees warmer Thursday, according to Madison, WI-based Weather Central.

Highs will be moving a few degrees lower in the Northeast and remaining relatively unchanged in the Midwest. Both regions have fairly modest cooling loads at present.

A tropical wave approaching the Lesser Antilles island chain at the eastern end of the Caribbean Sea, which had been rated as having “high” potential for development Tuesday by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), had been downgraded to “medium” potential Wednesday. However, conditions conducive to strengthening will improve in a couple of days, NHC said. At 2 p.m. EDT the system was about 200 miles east of the Leeward Islands section of the Lesser Antilles and moving west-northwestward at 10-15 mph.

NHC continued to regard a low-pressure area about 700 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands as having “medium” development potential.

The spread between El Paso’s two San Juan Basin pools — Bondad and Blanco — widened to an eye-catching $1.90 or so Wednesday with Blanco commanding a premium. As recently as Tuesday of last week the gap had been only 13 cents.

Heavy rains have significantly lowered power generation load in northern Florida, according to a utility buyer in the Sunshine State. But he thought prices at Florida Gas Zone 3 (down about a dime) held up relatively better than in the rest of the Gulf Coast because of storage buying in anticipation of the potential for the tropical system nearing the Caribbean causing some problems.

Barclays Capital Research analysts Michael Zenker and George Hopley said they expect this week’s storage report to show an injection of 49 Bcf, “including the impact of Tropical Storm Edouard shut-ins, which totaled 2.25 Bcf, as well as the maintenance outage at Independence Hub, which reduced supplies by an incremental 1.5 Bcf compared with the prior week.”

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