With milder weather reaching as far as the Southeast and energy futures back on a downward slope, it was virtually inevitable that cash prices continued to slide Wednesday at nearly all points. Besides the above factors, sources said the soft market also was reflecting what some believe will be a relatively big storage injection report Thursday morning for a period covering record-setting heat and electricity demand.

Only the Rockies, affected by transportation constraints and lack of liquidity resulting from many traders attending the Colorado Oil & Gas Association meeting in Denver, managed to achieve moderate upticks.

In other areas declines tended to range from about a nickel to 15 cents, with those around a dime most common. Since the screen fell by less than 6 cents, cash numbers were not as strong relative to futures as they had been in recent weeks, a Midcontinent marketer noted. (However, Henry Hub did maintain about a nickel premium over Nymex Wednesday.) “Power generation load is definitely down over last couple of days,” the marketer continued. “There’s no surprise there, though. It’s not as hot any more.”

The recent heat wave in the East was just a memory for the most part Wednesday. The lower parts of the southern tier of states were about the only areas still seeing high temperatures in the 90s. “We had our first decent day in quite a while after a cold front came through this morning,” said a source in the Southeast.

After being superseded by Transco Zone 6-NYC as king of the price mountain last week, Florida citygates are back on top again. One trader reported doing a citygate sale at $3.30 but said the deal was on a recallable basis, so it probably reflected a discount of about 5-7 cents from the general market. “If FGT [Florida Gas Transmission] keeps a 5% imbalance tolerance Thursday, I probably will recall the gas,” he said. In a lighter vein, he added, “They (FGT) keep that tolerance skipping around just to keep us on our toes.”

A western marketer said the PG&E citygate softened again despite the lifting of a high-linepack OFO (see Transportation Notes). PG&E was projecting linepack going down to minimum levels in the next couple of days, he added “but that’s likely to change when they revise the figures later this afternoon.” At one point Malin and the citygate were trading within 2 cents of each other, exactly matching Redwood Path variable costs, “but then the gate started pulling away again,” the marketer said.

Tropical Storm Cristobal barely moved from a position about 320 miles east of St. Augustine, FL. Forecasters gave it a chance of strengthening slightly as it moves on an anticipated course to the northeast, which would take it away from the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, the remnants of Tropical Storm Bertha moved back out into the Gulf of Mexico, posing no threat to offshore production and merely bringing rain to southwest Louisiana and the upper Texas Gulf Coast.

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