A prior-day screen rally and predictions of daily highs in the 80s and 90s Thursday across most of the southern half of the U.S. propelled the cash market to further gains at virtually all points Wednesday. In many instances Wednesday’s upticks were close to a repeat of those that came a day earlier.

A couple of cases of flat numbers at thinly traded points notwithstanding, the Wednesday price increases ranged from around a nickel to about 30 cents. However, only one point (Florida citygate) rose more than a quarter. The West tended to see most of the smallest gains, even though near-record heat should persist through Thursday in much of the western third of the nation, The Weather Channel (TWC) said.

Whether the general cash firmness of the past two days can be sustained any further was in doubt. The small amount of heating load that the Northeast had as the week began was fading (a Thursday high of 74 degrees was expected in Boston, while the New York City forecast called for a 72-degree peak), and Nymex traders rescinded nearly all of Tuesday’s 12.9-cent advance in June natural gas futures by pushing the contract 12.3 cents lower Wednesday.

On the other hand, temperatures will be in a warming trend across the South all the way into the weekend, according to TWC, so gas may encounter greater air conditioning demand along the way. Current total outages of the Farley 1, Oconee 3, Saint Lucie 2 and Surry 1 nuclear units in Alabama, South Carolina, Florida and Virginia respectively increase the odds of greater power generation load for gas (see NRC Nuclear Reactor Status report at https://intelligencepress.com/subscribers/power/nrc/).

Even Western Canada has warmed up considerably. One source pointed out that after not getting above the 30s early last week, the Calgary area forecast called for a downright toasty high in the mid 80s Wednesday.

The middle two-thirds of the U.S. should be pretty warm next week, according to The National Weather Service. Its forecast for the May 22-26 workweek calls for above normal temperatures everywhere between one line running roughly northward from the southeast corner of California to western Montana and another line running southeastward from the northeast corner of Minnesota to the Atlantic Coast border between South Carolina and North Carolina. All of the Northeast, except for western Pennsylvania and the western corner of New York, are predicted to experience below normal readings, along with the western halves of Oregon and Washington state and most of the northern third of California.

Global Insight analyst Jim Osten predicts that a storage injection of 95 Bcf will be reported for the week ending May 12. Looking ahead, he expects a build of 92 Bcf during the current week.

A Reuters news service survey of 20 industry found a range of 72-94 Bcf in estimates for the upcoming storage injection report. The average was about 83 Bcf, which Reuters said would match the five-year average injection for the week.

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