Prices fell by double digits (and in one case by more than a dollar) throughout the cash market Monday except in the Rockies. Traders continued to find below-normal cooling load for midsummer in most locations and Friday’s August futures descent grew even steeper Monday.

Most points dropped by anywhere from about 20 cents to the $1.05 area. In general eastern points tended to see most of the largest declines.

Questar was the only Rockies point to fall along with the rest of the market. Otherwise Rockies quotes ranged from flat to up about 45 cents. Volatility was high as a few Rockies points saw trading ranges of about a dollar or more.

Florida Gas Zone 3 took Monday’s biggest price fall by far. Florida Gas Transmission, which had an Overage Alert Day in effect from Wednesday through Friday last week due to low linepack and hot market-area weather, indicated Sunday that the situation had changed radically, saying it might need to issue an Underage Alert Day because its linepack was high and cooling rains were lowering temperatures in Florida (see Transportation Notes).

Chances of a cash rally anytime soon are very low, especially since the August futures contract began its last week of trading by sliding another 40.7 cents in its follow-up to Friday’s 26-cent loss. In addition, power generation load will remain light as very few areas outside the desert Southwest/Rockies/Upper Plains section of the U.S. are due to get above the low 90s.

Relatively moderate temperatures limited to the mid 80s or less will continue to dominate Midwest and Northeast conditions at least through Tuesday. Even the eastern end of the South continues to see subpar heat levels in late July. Atlanta was expected to top out at 85 degrees both Monday and Tuesday.

A Midcontinent producer isn’t looking for any screen support for cash gas anytime soon. He thinks August futures will break below $6 this week, as it came close to doing Monday, and will settle Friday “with a $5 handle.” Futures should go up from there, he added, “but when? [It] depends on the funds [and] if they have added more to their shorts, currently 62%. They have to come out sometime.”

A Midwestern utility buyer said the weather was “warm but tolerable” in his area. The utility bought “very little daily gas” Monday because July baseload supplies are covering nearly all of its current needs.

The buyer is getting an early start on the August bidweek. Northern Natural-demarc “seems popular” at index plus a penny, he said, adding that he had gotten several of those offers already. He bought some Chicago citygate gas into the Peoples system for August at index minus 0.25 cent, and reported having seen Nicor and NIPSCO delivers being offered at index plus a penny. He hadn’t done any August shopping on ANR-Southwest yet, but said in his company’s experience that pipe usually trades flat to index.

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