The cash market returned to its recently dominant trend of mixed price movement Friday, with most points being flat or rising or falling less than a dime. The numbers of gainers and losers were approximately equal as the approaching return of hotter weather in some areas was arrayed against prior-day screen weakness and the drop of industrial load that occurs over a weekend.

Overall, prices ranged from down about 15 cents to up about 20 cents. However, as they have often done in the last couple of months, the Rockies stood out with declines that ran as high as a little more than 40 cents. Cooling load would be rising over the weekend in the Rockies region itself, but the Pacific Northwest temperatures that had supported Rockies prices earlier in the week by approaching 100 degrees were long gone, being replaced by forecast Saturday highs of 84 at Portland, OR, and 78 at Seattle.

All Northeast citygates scored small to moderate gains despite a series of cold fronts expected to keep moving into the region through the middle of this week. Gulf Coast numbers were more mixed as scattered thunderstorms were due to cool much of the South into early this week. Thermometer readings were forecast to be rising in the Midwest, which resulted in flat to about a dime higher citygates. But that didn’t support Midcontinent prices, all of which saw single-digit dips.

Florida Gas Zone 3, after dropping 34 cents Thursday on the supposition that rain in the market area would spur Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) to lift an Overage Alert Day, rebounded by about 15 cents Friday to lead Gulf Coast gains. FGT kept the Overage Alert Day in effect Friday, citing forecasts of temperatures reaching the mid 90s in Florida.

“It’s the same old story — not much demand,” lamented a Midcontinent producer, who noted that the modest firmness of Midwest citygates had failed to carry over to production-area points. Buying targeted for storage injections seemed to be a little stronger on OGT than on the interstate pipes, he added.

The producer said he expects most, if not all, of the cash market to be higher Monday. It will have the support of Friday’s 16.5-cent rebound by August futures, and higher temperatures should be returning to the Midwest by then, he observed.

It was “pretty quiet right now” for a utility buyer in the Lower Midwest. But he expected a little more excitement in the near future as area temperatures were forecast to start warming into the 90s again over the weekend. That should give his company’s gas throughput a significant boost early this week, he said. The buyer added that it was surprising to see some instances of firmness returning to the market Friday after all points had recorded double-digit losses the day before. He had expected virtually all of the market to be down for the weekend.

Spark spreads aren’t very good for gas at this point, according to a utility buyer in the Southwest. Hot weather in the region is stimulating power generation load, he said, but units with heat rates of 11 and above are out of the market. Thus his company is running only a very few but very efficient gas-fired peaking units.

Nuclear generation in the Southwest is expected to be higher this week with the Palo Verde plant’s Unit 1 scheduled to come back on-line Sunday morning, but even that’s tentative, he said.

Cash gas prices “are coming in our direction, and that’s good,” the buyer continued. He said it’s hard to understand how futures can keep resisting a fall to $6 or so this year because market fundamentals don’t seem all that supportive.

The number of drilling rigs actively searching for gas in the U.S. took a big jump of 28 to 1,501 in the week ending July 13, according to the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/). All of the gains were onshore (31) as the Gulf of Mexico tally fell by three, Baker Hughes said.

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