The cash market was a mishmash of higher, lower and flat quotes Monday as varying points reacted to a variety of weather outlooks and capacity constraints. There was little consistency of price movement within individual market areas other than the Northeast tending to see the greatest strength and Midwest citygates being solidly softer. The return of industrial load after a weekend hiatus provided a little support in all areas.

A cold front due to usher lower temperatures into most of the Midwest Tuesday helped to explain that region’s price weakness, along with declines at most Midcontinent points. For example, the Chicago area was in transition from a high slightly above 100 degrees Sunday to one in the low 90s Monday, followed by forecasts of peak thermometer readings in the low 80s Tuesday, with an overnight low in the low 60s.

A cold front also was approaching the Northeast from the northwest, but its push of daily highs down into the 80s would only be felt in northern New England, much of New York state and parts of Pennsylvania, according to The Weather Channel.

Except for maximum temperatures sinking into the 60s in parts of the Rockies, hot weather will remain the rule in the South and most of the West.

Like their predecessor Bret, Tropical Storms Franklin and Gert were nonevents for Gulf of Mexico producers. As expected, Franklin stayed well out in the Atlantic Ocean over the weekend and was on a general northeasterly track toward Bermuda on Monday. Gert dissipated quickly into a rainy tropical depression over the mountains of central Mexico after making landfall Sunday night near Tampico, well south of the U.S. border.

Spokespeople for Tennessee and Texas Eastern, two pipes that stretch into South Texas, said no supply shortfalls related to Gert occurred over the weekend.

Analyst Kyle Cooper of Citigroup said his final estimation for the upcoming storage report is for a build of 41-51 Bcf, which would be significantly less than the comparable year-ago and five-year average injections.

A producer said the New York City area was still fairly hot Monday in the low 90s and was predicted to warm up a bit to 95 degrees Tuesday, although humidity would not be as high as it was last week. That meant that market-area power generation load for gas was still strong, although not quite as strong as in the previous week when the heat was more severe and more widespread. He reported experiencing a small amount of weekend Gulf Coast supply losses because of pipeline capacity constraints, but none because of Tropical Storm Gert.

The producer said he had just gotten out of a company meeting to discuss bidweek strategy Monday afternoon, so he hadn’t done any August deals yet. However, Transco Station 65 “looks very strong” for August, he said, adding that he was seeing basis for the point bid at plus 8.5 cents and offered at plus 12 cents.

A Calgary-based producer was getting a quicker start on bidweek trading, saying he had placed about 75 MMcf/d of baseload gas Monday. He reported a Chicago fixed-price range of $7.05-16, with an average of just under $7.10. Other citygate deals he had monitored on an online trading service were in the same area, he said. Physical basis for Chicago moved lower to as weak as minus 13 cents, and fixed prices also were falling as he proceeded, the producer went on. “All the utilities were gobbling up supplies” due to the basis weakness, he said. However, the citygates he did at the NGI index tended to strengthen, he said, running from index minus 4 cents to index plus 3.5 cents later.

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