The cash market reacted as expected to Monday’s futures weakness and further declines in fundamental weather support, registering drops between about a nickel and 20 cents at nearly all points Tuesday. Those in the range of 10-15 cents formed a slight majority.

Although June futures meandered around on both sides of flat Tuesday, its eventual gain of less than a nickel was not expected to overcome a moderating trend for hot weather in the South, leading a couple of sources to predict further softness Wednesday.

At first glance, San Juan Basin numbers seemed to be an anomaly in the overall market with gains of more than 30 cents into the $4.20s. But that was really kind illusionary, one western trader said. “Look how weak it [San Juan market] is compared to Henry Hub and the Rockies,” he went on, adding that it is rare historically for San Juan to trade at substantially lower levels than the Rockies (quotes were something like 60-70 cents higher for the Rockies Wednesday). San Juan quotes “got crushed Friday” by the weekend shift of maintenance constraint on Transwestern’s San Juan Lateral and “are just very slow in recovering, the trader said. He noted that Southern California border quotes remained comfortably above the PG&E citygate due to the outage of Transwestern deliveries at Needles continuing through Wednesday.

A couple of Florida utility buyers were relieved that for the second time in recent weeks, Florida Gas Transmission did not follow up an advisory of a potential Overage Alert Day notice by actually issuing a notice. The latest “false alarm must have scared a few people into making sure they wouldn’t get caught short,” one said. The other buyer said he thinks “that’s FGT’s new [operational management] tool: just a stern warning” about a potential OAD will achieve the desired results. He observed that purchases on either side of $5.90 in FGT’s Zones 2 and 3, coupled with a Florida citygate sale in the low $6.20s, “sure does make a pretty skinny transport margin to the gate, but every penny counts.” Heavy showers moved into the state over the weekend and were continuing, “keeping our temperatures from getting too hot.”

A Midcontinent utility buyer reported having “a little bit of heating load” on his system Monday and Tuesday with early-morning lows in the 40s, “but that’s going away pretty soon.”

The weather has finally improved enough around Calgary that a producer reported having lined up a golf game for next Monday afternoon. He figured it will be a quiet enough day with U.S. traders off for Memorial Day “that we’ll be able to get out early.”

For a Northeast trader, it was the “same old same old: we’re trying to feed some generation plants that don’t really want the gas.” The regional power market remains fairly weak with very little cooling or heating load, he said.

Several sources said little if any June business is being discussed yet. June basis was looking stronger than before Tuesday, “but that was relative to the screen weakness Monday and again today [Tuesday],” a Mid-Atlantic utility buyer.

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