The cash market’s slide continued unabated in post-weekend trading, with some points plumbing depths they had not seen in nearly a year and a half. Declines tended to be smallest at Rockies/San Juan and California points because temperatures were getting hotter in the region again, especially in the desert Southwest where highs topped 100 degrees.

Other than a bit of western heat, weather fundamentals remained relatively weak elsewhere. Toss in a substantially softer screen and expectations that this week’s AGA report will further enlarge an already hefty year-on-year storage surplus, and you’ve got the recipe for prices to keep going lower, a couple of traders said.

It was time to dig up the historical database again to see how long it’s been since prices were this low. Until yesterday one benchmark index point, the Chicago citygate, hadn’t seen numbers averaging in the high $2.50s since trading for Feb. 28, 2000 flow, or just shy of a year and a half ago. That date also marked the last time before this week that Transco Zone 6-NYC averaged less than $2.90. And although California border-SoCalGas got down to $2.90 last month in deals for July 23 flow, one must go back to trading for the gas day of March 27, 2000 to find the last time the border was below $2.90.

There’s nothing in sight at this point to indicate a potential rally, sources said. Sustained heat is improbable since the National Weather Service, in its latest six-to-10-day forecast, sees the only above normal temperatures occurring in the Upper Plains from the Upper Midwest through western Montana and dipping down into Colorado. Outside the Upper Midwest, this is mostly a low-population region.

The pipeline picture was a bit inconsistent. While Florida Gas Transmission was extending a low-linepack OFO, Transco warned shippers it was experiencing excessive positive imbalances and must restrict receipt make-up nominations to storage withdrawals (see Transportation Notes).

Intra-Alberta numbers got as low as C$3.15 before starting to pop up again as it became apparent that an explosion at the BP Alberta storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan (see related story in this issue) would create at least moderate tightness in provincial inventories, a Calgary-based producer said. Although the blast injured no one, the resultant fire caused at least a couple of nearby processing facilities to shut down operations and more might follow suit, he said.

Dean regained tropical storm strength over the weekend, but by then it was in the North Atlantic and posed no threat to land, much less Gulf of Mexico gas production. Several tropical waves moving westward across the Atlantic were deemed inconsequential at this point. An area of thunderstorms off the eastern coast of Mexico was believed unlikely to do any more than bring much-needed rain to the Texas Gulf Coast.

September business is a slow starter, but that’s to be expected, a marketer said. “Buyers will want to squeeze every last bit of softness they can out of bidweek before doing September deals,” he said, adding that he expects to pick up more and more today and Wednesday.

Much like in trading for August, index discounts appear to be popular. One source reported trading border-SoCalGas at the GPI index minus 5-4 cents, while another was doing Chicago-Nicor deals at GPI‘s index minus 3.25-3 cents.

A marketer quoted El Paso-Permian and Waha at index minus 10 cents and minus 8-7 cents respectively, adding that fixed-price ranges at those points were $2.39-46 and $2.42-46 respectively. A Northeast trader quoted basis of plus 13.25 cents for TCO and plus 28.25-50 cents for Transco Zone 6-NYC.

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