Reflecting fairly light weather-based demand in several areas and a small prior-day futures drop, cash prices were mixed and close to unchanged in most cases Wednesday. However, a SoCalGas OFO induced larger declines at the border and in the Southwest basins.

A moderate majority of points fell from 2-3 cents to about 80 cents. The rest ranged from flat to nearly a quarter higher. Besides the West, the Midcontinent was softer than most areas despite high localized heat and chillier weather returning to its primary market area of the Midwest.

Thursday’s cash market will have renewed futures support after Nymex’s June natural gas contract began Wednesday in negative territory but reconnected with another record-setting push higher by crude oil to record a gain of 17.7 cents.

A significant factor behind spot gas prices being strong earlier this week in the face of generally mild weather fundamentals is that a large number of nuclear units are shut down for maintenance, refueling or other reasons, as evidenced by NGI‘s NRC Power Reactor Status Report (https://intelligencepress.com/subscribers/power/nrc/).

A shower-producing cold front will reduce cooling load in the eastern half of the South Thursday, but toward the west Houston may get its first 90-degree day of the year.

Conditions will be near early-May norms in the Midwest and Northeast, according to The Weather Channel — that is, cool but not cold enough to spur any heating load of significance to the gas industry. The situation is similar in much of the West; outside of highs in the low 90s in the desert Southwest, temperatures will tend to range from moderate to chilly, but unlikely to go below the 40s in most areas.

With Florida Gas Transmission extending an Overage Alert Day at least through Wednesday, the Florida citygate and Florida Gas Zone 3 saw gains in the range of 20-25 cents. The Zone 3 increase was in contrast to lower quotes at most other Louisiana points.

The Southern California border took one of the day’s biggest price hits after SoCalGas belatedly issued a high-linepack OFO for Wednesday and kept it in place through Thursday (see Transportation Notes). Its California neighbor to the north, PG&E, did not issue an OFO but might follow suit by the weekend as it projected linepack on its California Gas Transmission as slightly exceeding the maximum target level Saturday.

Cash numbers will “probably” move higher at most points Thursday in response to the futures support, said a Texas-based marketer who noted that the June contract rose a little bit more after Nymex’s regular trading session ended. As of late Wednesday afternoon June natural gas was being bid on ICE at $11.329 and offered at $11.335, he said.

The cash market didn’t really move much, making it a “fairly bland” trading day, the marketer continued. He noted that the Chicago citygate was stronger relative to Henry Hub than where it started the month. Chicago temperatures will be colder Thursday, he said, but that resulted in only a small citygate gain because instead of turning on furnaces, most residents will just shut their windows.

Gas in South Texas is having some trouble getting around Tennessee constraints, he said, mentioning his company’s only Gulf Coast transportation hassle of any consequence.

Referring to the unusual timing of SoCalGas issuing its OFO notices (posting the Wednesday OFO early that morning and waiting till the afternoon to announce the extension into Thursday, the marketer said it was “a little bit confusing” to his company’s western traders, who had to shuffle some nominations in response.

A marketer in the Upper Midwest said temperatures had dropped a bit in her area, but not enough to result in significant heating load yet. That might happen when it gets colder next week, she said. Her company hasn’t made any spot gas purchases this week, she said, both because it bought more baseload supply than usual and because it didn’t like how high prices were rising.

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