The cash market was mixed for the second trading day in a row Monday, but this time bulls were in the majority. Flat to mildly lower numbers, with losses of up to nearly a dime, were concentrated mostly in the Gulf Coast and Northeast. But forecasts of searing heat across the Southwest and spreading into California, along with diminished but still warm and muggy weather in the South, were sufficient to raise prices at a majority of points.

The overall rebounds were strongest in the West, where gains ran as high as about 45 cents. Not only was the desert Southwest continuing to see triple-digit peak temperatures, but hotter weather is moving into Central California, prompting SoCalGas and PG&E to lift the high-linepack OFOs that they had entered the weekend with (see Transportation Notes).

The “reopening” of the California market, so to speak, had a bracing effect on Rockies/San Juan quotes, where most of Monday’s biggest increases occurred. Whereas San Juan gas had missed out on Friday’s other heat-inspired gains in the Southwest due to lack of California demand, basin quotes were up a little more than 35 cents Monday in both the Blanco and Bondad pools of El Paso.

Because of subdued weather load in the Pacific Northwest, points there and in intra-Alberta saw relatively moderate upticks in the teens. But less than a week after sinking as low as $3.00 due to a major transportation constraint, Northwest-South of Green River registered Monday’s biggest gain to pull within a couple of cents below the pipeline’s Sumas average.

Predicted rain and a moderate cold front Tuesday will dampen the power generation load that was building last week in much of the South east of the Mississippi River. However, highs in the 90s and even 100s would prevail in Louisiana and Texas, The Weather Channel said. A moderate Nor’easter was expected Tuesday in the Northeast, but it wasn’t likely to raise heating load appreciably. Meanwhile, Midwest temperatures are predicted to range from below average to near average — quite moderate, that is.

An Overage Alert Day notice by Florida Gas Transmission (see Transportation Notes) boosted Florida citygates a bit, but had no price-lifting impact in the field. FGT Zone 3 was flat while Zones 1 and 2 fell nearly a nickel.

“The weather had a little influence today,” said a marketer. Heat in the Gulf Coast was down a little but generation load hadn’t disappeared, he said. It made daily trading “a little more brisk than it was last week.” Trading for June has been very slow so far, he added.

A Houston-based trader said that although CenterPoint, the electrical distributor for the Houston area, had told him power outages of about an hour each at his home Saturday and at a neighbor’s house Sunday were caused by “blown fuses,” he said he was suspicious that “rolling brownouts” may have been responsible instead. He thinks intrastate Texas got hotter over the weekend, and that CenterPoint may have gotten caught short on its gas supply.

No snow is expected, but “supposedly” what the Northeast will be getting Tuesday qualifies as a Nor’easter, said a producer who trades the region. Temperatures in the New York City metro area should be about 15 degrees below normal in the upper 50s. Noting that natural gas futures had eked out a daily gain of 6.4 cents after early mild softness, the producer said he guessed that “once the screen got rolling, guess it went through some buy stops.

The producer said he was hearing June basis around plus half a dollar for Texas Eastern M-3 and Transco Zone 6-NYC, and at plus 47 cents for Transco’s non-NYC pool in Zone 6. Most bidweek business should get done Tuesday and Wednesday, he predicted.

A Calgary-based producer reported doing “quite a bit of flat basis and flat index deals” at the Chicago citygate for June, saying those numbers had barely moved at all since last week. Because of the Victoria Day holiday, he was one of only a few employees in his office.

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