Weighed down by the day-earlier futures loss of nearly 20 cents and with only marginal prospects for further gains in fundamental demand, most of the cash market recorded drops ranging from about a nickel to 20 cents Tuesday. Western points were a bit stronger than the overall market, seeing modest rebounds in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada and flat to barely lower numbers elsewhere.

The screen was providing no new clues following Monday’s dive, instead drifting from slightly negative territory Tuesday morning to an eventual daily gain of only 1.6 cents. The crude oil and heating oil contracts for July were also rather sedate with moderate upticks.

Several sources agreed that cash trading was somewhat lackluster and probably signified that until some major event comes along to shake the market up, a relative doldrums period has begun. A marketer who had just returned to the office Tuesday afternoon after being absent Friday said he was a little out of touch, “but judging by my lack of e-mails, things are pretty quiet.”

The Northeast was getting a small break from its cool late spring with highs creeping up to near 80 degrees Tuesday, but a cold front due Wednesday would make the break brief. The South is now realizing fairly typical air conditioning load for early June, but that was considered unlikely to generate price rallies without significant help from other areas.

Meanwhile, a Midwest trader couldn’t help but wonder when summer might arrive in his region. He reported seeing “no forecast yet indicating that we’re due for more seasonal temperatures,” and that thermometers were topping out in the 70s, which enhanced personal comfort but severely limited gas usage. He also noted that the screen “was just hanging in there. Is it waiting for some kind of signal to do something?”

A tropical low in the far eastern Atlantic, about 1,000 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, continued to be monitored. According to The Weather Channel, “Tropical waves coming off Africa normally do not develop at this time of year, but this one has a chance since it is so far south (about 8 degrees north latitude), away from the shearing effect of strong westerly winds aloft.”

A bearish signal came from Tennessee Gas Pipeline, where storage injection demand has increased to the point that it expected to begin rejecting injection nominations Wednesday for interruptible and firm Authorized Overrun services (see Transportation Notes). The pipeline confirmed later Tuesday that IS and FS-AO nominations were not being accepted as of Wednesday’s gas day.

It did not issue an OFO, but Pacific Gas & Electric was projecting Tuesday that linepack would exceed its maximum target levels over the next three days.

The National Weather Service is again offering a generally bearish forecast for next week. In the June 16-20 period, the only region due for above normal temperatures is the Upper Plains/Upper Midwest with a thin strip extending into New England, NWS says. Much of the Southeast is expected to be cooling off with below normal readings, as will a slice extending from central California through Southern California and the southern half of Arizona into southwestern New Mexico. Otherwise look for normal conditions, NWS said.

Asked his assessment of prospects for a supply crisis later this year, a Northeast marketer said his guarded answer was that “if there is no three-week hurricane shut-in in the Gulf of Mexico, we’ll probably will get by on the hair of our chinny-chin-chins” (invoking the Three Little Pigs saga). But he added that the industry “has got to have a lot of triple-digit weekly [storage] injections” to get through the winter OK.

Analyst Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers predicted a storage injection volume of 105 Bcf for the week ended June 6.

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