Most of the market was moderately firmer Thursday, ranging flat to about 15 cents higher. A majority of gains were small at a nickel or less. But the Northeast apparently was anticipating a cool front moving into its northern half Friday, because area citygates dropped by sizeable amounts, topped out by a dollar-plus plunge at Transco Zone 6-New York City, which put on a volatility show during the day between $3.50 and $9.00.

Rockies numbers registered most of the largest advances. Kern River-Opal traded in the $1.50s for much of the morning, but a few late deals shot up into the low $1.90s. One marketer speculated that somebody lost their supply and got caught in the familiar short squeeze. However, another trader suspected that “it might have been somebody playing games, trying to jack up the basis” at Opal. He noted that his company sold in the $1.70s there after doing a $1.90 deal. At the time you could have bought Sumas at $1.80 or so and transported it to Opal, instead of paying in the $1.90s, he said.

It’s probably hard for many sweltering Americans to comprehend, but a blast of cold air swept through Western Canada Thursday and into parts of the Pacific Northwest. “It’s actually pretty chilly here today,” said a Calgary trader, which helped account for the strong Rockies/Pacific Northwest market and an intra-Alberta climb of about C30 cents into the C$2.80s.

A marketer quoting Chicago in the low $3.00s noted that cash was significantly above the screen, “so we were selling. It will be easy to buy back that gas later.”

Cloud cover and a bit of rain in southern Florida were cooling off the state a bit, yet after loosening the imbalance tolerance for an Overage Alert Day notice Wednesday from 5% to 10%, Florida Gas Transmission restricted it to 5% again Thursday. A couple of Florida utility buyers agreed that the pipeline’s imbalance adjustments reflect its linepack situation, rather than shifting market area demand. An electric utility staffer said gas is currently “too pricey” to run their peaking units.

Even with this week’s heat wave easing off, there’s still a lot of gas going to markets instead of storage, a Houston-based marketer said. Even with the screen’s bearish reaction to EIA’s report of 60 Bcf injected into storage last week, he noted that Henry Hub was trading a dime or more above Nymex Thursday morning. That led him to lean toward there being enough hot weather left to keep prices at least mildly firmer for the weekend. But he cautioned, “When the heat goes away, watch out.”

Obviously a lot of gas has been coming out of storage this week to combat high temperatures, so the marketer is looking for a relative low-volume, and thus bullish, EIA report next week.

A western trader said the PG&E citygate started in the low $2.90s, but moved lower along with NP-15 power prices.

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