A flat ANR ML-7 was the sole exception to rising cash prices Tuesday. The market was able to continue this week’s overall rally so far despite support from weather fundamentals getting even weaker and neutral screen guidance from Monday. However, one source speculated that last week’s softness late in the week may be drawing out storage buying bargain-hunters and possibly some fuel switchers now that prices are considerably lower than earlier this year.

Not counting ANR ML-7, gains ranged from a little less than a nickel to about 60 cents. The Rockies repeated as the market area seeing most of the largest upticks.

It will be difficult for cash numbers to sustain their newfound strength for another day. October natural gas futures fell nearly a dime Tuesday after spending time in positive territory that morning, likely dragged down by major weakness in Nymex’s petroleum products complex. October crude dive plummeted almost $2, and its close below $64/bbl was the first in seven months.

Weather support for the cash market is waning even further. It remains cool across the northern U.S. and Canada, significantly hot temperatures remain confined to the desert Southwest and inland California, and the South is continuing to shed its usually strong air conditioning load that continues into September. Atlanta’s high will sink into the low to mid 70s Wednesday, while Birmingham, AL and New Orleans are expected to top out in the low 80s and mid to high 80s respectively.

Sumas, which had stretched its premium over Northwest-domestic to more than $1.30 last Friday, has lost most of that premium in the last couple of days. The domestic gain of about 60 cents Tuesday while Sumas was up only about 3 cents narrowed the spread to 45 cents or so.

An already busy Atlantic tropical scene got even busier Tuesday with the addition of Tropical Depression Eight (TD8). Hurricane Florence (which was becoming extratropical and for which the National Hurricane Center posted its final advisory at 5 p.m. AST Tuesday) and Tropical Storm Gordon had already been written out of the gas market picture, destined as they were for North Atlantic extinction.

It was a little too early to tell about TD8, however, which was still quite remote and nearer West Africa than North America from its center’s position about 195 miles south of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands at 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday, the NHC said. The agency’s “five-day cone” of projected tracking had the depression proceeding mostly to the west through Thursday afternoon before taking a more northwesterly tack. But maintaining such a course would have TD8 approaching the South Atlantic or Mid-Atlantic coastlines next week, rather than trying to shoot the gap between Florida and Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico. Also, NHC’s “Tropical Storm Wind Speed Probability” graphic (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml) indicated that like Debby, Florence and Gordon before it, TD8 would veer to the north and remain far out at sea.

A Gulf Coast producer acknowledged that cash prices were up Tuesday, but said they “look pretty weak” to me relative to first-of-month indexes. Indeed, NGI finds only Questar trading above index, while everything else is at deficits of about a dime or more — most often much more, with dollar-plus gaps at most Northeast and Gulf Coast points. The producer said the fundamental weakness and screen drop lead him to expect lower cash quotes Wednesday.

A Florida Gas Transmission maintenance constraint in Zone 3 has been kind of annoying to work around, he said, but it ought to end in a couple of days. He added that ANR owes FGT a big imbalance, which is causing some FGT Zone 2 supply shortages. However, since Florida market area demand is lagging, there’s no real pinch, he added.

The storage injection volume should be very high in Thursday’s report, a Northeast utility buyer said. If it gets as high as the 95 Bcf area that some analysts are predicting, that definitely should “hammer” the screen Thursday and subsequently cash Friday, he went on. His company is buying just a little new gas each day, nearly all for putting into storage, the buyer said. Otherwise its system needs are pretty well covered by September baseload.

There has been speculation since late spring/early summer on whether the fast pace of injections will lead to full facilities before the traditional end of the season (Oct. 31) and lead to a price crash, the buyer noted. But he doesn’t think now that will happen; instead, he expects gradual but fairly steady softening over the next month and a half. “There’s always enough physical demand each day” that really steep dives seem unlikely, he concluded.

The National Weather Services predicts above normal temperatures during the Sept. 18-22 workweek from southeast New Mexico through Texas and most of Oklahoma, throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic and including the southern section of the Northeast. It looks for below normal readings in nearly all of the West (but only in the northeast quarter of New Mexico) and extending through the Plains states into the Midwest as far as Wisconsin (but excluding Illinois).

Analysts Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research and Citigroup’s Tim Evans have virtually identical — and highly bearish — projections of the storage injection for the week ending Sept. 8. Denhardt flatly pegged a build of 95 Bcf, while Evans said expected an injection of “95 Bcf or so.”

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