As NGI sources had predicted, residual support from Thursday’s screen gain of nearly 16 cents (along with spikes in the rest of the energy futures complex) proved sufficient to outweigh weekend losses of cooling load in the Northeast and Midwest. The result was upticks ranging from about 3 cents to almost 15 cents in most of Friday’s cash market, although flat to moderately lower numbers were recorded at several Northeast citygates and western points.

A cold front moving south from Canada was expected to have Northeast residents thinking of fall over the weekend, but a gradual warming trend starting Monday was forecast to bring highs back into the 80s as far north as Maine by Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel. Cooler thermometer readings were already being felt Friday in parts of the Midwest, although the central Plains states could expect triple-digit highs again Sunday. Otherwise, in spite of some cooling off in the West, hot weather was expected to remain the norm from the South through the desert Southwest and into the Rockies.

For much of Friday it appeared that Tropical Depression Nine might inject a little suspense into this week’s market as it headed west-northwest Friday from a position south of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic). However, TD Nine had degenerated into a tropical wave by late that afternoon, and tropical storm warnings for Hispaniola were discontinued. The National Hurricane Center said it would not issue any further advisories on the system unless regeneration occurred. Had it strengthened into named tropical storm status, TD Nine would have been called Fabian (shades of 1950s pop music!).

The dropoff in weekend power generation demand was pretty obvious to traders in the Midwest and Northeast markets. “It was mainly the screen run-up from yesterday [Thursday] behind today’s [Friday] cash advances,” said a Houston-based marketer. He added that prices were falling back a bit in late deals.

Pointing out that New England numbers were among the weakest in the East, one source said early-week supply shortfalls from the Sable Offshore Energy Project had been pretty well worked out by Friday. “Volumes are still off a little, but not enough to affect prices,” he added. Echoing remarks by others about how quiet Friday’s market was with a stagnant gas futures contract and only tiny losses in oil and gasoline futures, the source said it was one of the quietest trading days he’d seen in a very long time.

After trading at a two-cent premium to the September screen in recent days, Katy and Henry Hub fell back to a discount of 2-3 cents or so Friday as cash prices felt the effect of moderating heat and slackened weekend demand, according to an intrastate Texas trader. Rain and cloud cover were expected to limit daytime heat in Houston over the weekend. However, the relative softness in East Texas (compared with the rest of the Gulf Coast) was not as pronounced as in the western part of the state, where Waha prices dropped back to a more traditional 20-cent discount to Katy after trading as tight as 7 cents back over the previous couple of days, he said. “It seems the moderating heat in places like Dallas reduced demand for west side [Waha] supply.”

A western marketer observed that Permian Basin quotes, down about 3 cents for the day, rebounded to $4.98 after bottoming out at $4.87. “It made for some mildly exciting action in an otherwise calm day,” he said. However, traders were unable to work some transport from the basin out to California, so he preferred to do Waha business because it “was more constant.”

The marketer went on to comment that “Fridays are always a little iffy. If you are lucky enough to find a trader who’s not leaving early on vacation, it’s likely that he or she is only doing index deals.”

Citigroup analyst Kyle Cooper’s initial estimation of this week’s storage report is for an injection on either side of 70 Bcf. That would compare with volumes of 59 Bcf a year ago and 58 Bcf in the five-year average.

Few if any traders were bothering with September business last week. Bidweek will be wrapped up in a tidy Monday-Friday package this time with no weekend interruption, one source pointed out. However, a Midwest trader reported doing a Peoples (Chicago) citygate deal at the NGI index minus 1.75 cents, and said he was hearing Chicago basis of plus 7 cents.

A Northeast marketer said he expected declining indexes in September, “at least in delivered prices, but nothing’s happening yet.”

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