Sources could think of nothing besides the potential for Tropical Storm Henri as an explanation for the screen managing a gain of just over a nickel and cash prices going up between 2 cents and about a dime. Temperature-related demand fundamentals are still quite weak as an advancing cold front keeps even the South unusually mild for late summer. As on the day before, the only serious heat remains in an area ranging from the desert Southwest through Oregon.

Another reason to suspect that Wednesday’s bullish spurt will be short-lived is the widespread anticipation of a large injection volume in Thursday morning’s storage report. Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper reflected popular consensus in looking for EIA to report a build between 70 and 80 Bcf. “There is little confidence, however, after the last report,” he said.

The center of TD 12 was about 210 miles southwest of Apalachicola, FL at 4 p.m. CDT Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center reported. Tropical storm warnings were issued for the Gulf Coast of Florida from Englewood to Indian Pass. The depression was nearly stationary but “should begin to move slowly toward the northeast and east-northeast during the next 24 hours,” NHC said. Maximum sustained winds were near 30 mph.

The “dangerous” Hurricane Fabian, as the NHC referred to it, continued to look like a non-event for Gulf of Mexico production. It was moving slowly toward the northwest at 5 p.m. AST Wednesday from a position about 660 miles south of Bermuda, which was expected to issue a hurricane watch sometime early Thursday morning. Fabian’s top winds had slowed a bit to 120 mph Wednesday, but slight re-strengthening was possible in the next day or two, NHC said.

There was more demand in the Northeast Wednesday than the day before, but still not much, a marketer commented. “It’s pure shoulder month action for the Northeast,” he said.

In a related note, Fabian was considered only a minor threat at most to New England supplies from offshore eastern Canada. According to a Reuters news report, the operator of the Sable Offshore Energy Project was not taking special hurricane precautions because it appeared that SOEP was not directly in the storm’s path. A spokesman for operator Exxon Mobil was quoted as saying that according to the diminishing Fabian projections by its weather service providers, “We would see conditions worse than that with just regular operations.”

“The weather’s beautiful here,” said a Midwestern utility buyer. She anticipated prices starting to fall again Thursday because neither Fabian nor TD 12 were likely to cause any supply cuts. The buyer noted that the utility was starting to see a marked increase in third-party storage injections behind its system this week. “We’re hoping for a big storage injection figure tomorrow [Thursday]; in fact, we’re looking for big ones all through September.”

By making a landing along the East Coast, Fabian would only decrease gas demand, an eastern marketer believes. Not only would the hurricane bring cooling rains to dampen air conditioning load, but it also would probably cause power outages, which should curtail the use of peaking gas-fired generators, he said.

For the Sept. 8-12 period, the National Weather Service predicts above normal temperatures north of a line starting in Montana and dipping into the Midcontinent, including the Midwest, Northeast and northern portions of the Mid-Atlantic. Below normal readings are expected in most of Oregon and Washington, and also in Southern California along with most of Arizona and portions of Utah and Nevada. Normal weather is expected elsewhere.

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