The expected softening materialized at nearly all points Wednesday. But although mild to cool weather in most regions argued for price slides to continue Thursday, a big screen rally threw some doubt on upcoming cash market movement.

Except for losses of up to 20 cents or so in California, overall declines tended to be moderate, ranging from minuscule to about 15 cents. Most of them were around a dime or slightly less.

El Paso-San Juan (Blanco) was the only point to realize a small gain, and a western marketer said she had no idea why prices would be up slightly there in defiance of the general western tendency to see most of Wednesday’s larger drops. No significant maintenance impacts affecting San Juan came to mind, she said.

The PG&E citygate led the trek downward with a loss of 20 cents. The utility again did not issue an OFO, but expected its linepack to start topping maximum target levels Saturday.

June natural gas futures shot up 31.6 cents based chiefly on a new price explosion in Nymex’s oil-based products. Crude rose nearly a dollar to $41.50/bbl, and unleaded gasoline at New York Harbor established another record high as government reports Wednesday morning of increased gasoline inventories failed to calm worries about supply tightness. One report also said that Nymex gas traders were looking ahead to prospects of rising temperatures adding to Southern power generation load by next week.

A cash trader agreed. He was not seeing any significant increases in Texas electric generation load yet, but that was probably because most of the heat above 90 degrees was still in the sparsely populated western sections as of Wednesday. The intrastate market should be getting much stronger by early next week as hot weather spreads into East Texas and beyond, he said. The price range at Katy is staying unusually tight, he noted.

Another source commented that it is “kind of past time” for the South to be making its usual contribution to pre-summer cooling demand.

A marketer reported seeing “about the same demand in Chicago as in the last few days,” although she did note that the citygate did trade above Nymex during the morning, “which was unusual.” Of course, the screen’s subsequent rise to gain of 30-plus cents did take it back above Chicago in the afternoon, she added. The marketer declined to try to make a call on Thursday’s market, saying there was too much conflict between weather and futures influences.

Citigroup’s Kyle Cooper said his final estimation for Thursday morning’s storage report calls for a build between 84 and 94 Bcf.

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