As sources had anticipated, forecasts of high temperatures once again infesting much of the nation were insufficient to overcome the double drag on prices of a big futures drop on the previous afternoon and the fall-off in industrial load that accompanies a weekend. Outside of continuing moderate firmness at Rockies and Pacific Northwest points, the rest of Friday’s market ranged from flat to about 20 cents lower. Declines on either side of a dime were most prevalent.

After leading next-day gas prices for two days in a row, the screen had precious little new guidance to offer Friday, staying close to flat during the morning, before eventually eking out a small gain of 3.4 cents. The crude oil and heating oil contracts experienced moderate losses.

Even with 100-degree-plus heat building for the weekend from South Texas through Oklahoma and Kansas (joining the desert Southwest, where triple-digit temperatures have been common all summer), prices were unable to find enough air conditioning load to avert a weekend fall.

The Northeast was expected to continue delighting in unseasonally cool weather for one more day Saturday before a warming trend began Sunday. It must be a heck of a scorcher on the way, though, because power prices for Monday delivery in the PJM-West and Nepool (New England) territories were soaring by more than $47/MWh and $29/MWh respectively in Friday’s trading, according to the ICE online platform.

A producer said he got calls for Monday-only gas related to the huge power price jumps in Northeast, but didn’t accommodate any of them. “We traded all of our gas through the weekend,” he said.

The Midwest also was expected to warm up again over the weekend, but cloud cover and thunderstorms appeared to be delaying that Friday. A regional utility trader said it wasn’t all that hot yet, even though it was “very dry here.”

A marketer quoted Kern River-Opal in the high $1.50s early and low $1.70s late. It ran up throughout the morning, he said, chiefly due to a supply squeeze caused by lack of liquidity. Also, he added, Rockies prices may have gotten a boost due to Northwest ending a constraint at the Moab (UT) Compressor Station Friday, “which lets people take more Rockies gas to San Juan Basin and then on to California.”

A Northwest utility buyer had expected prices to be lower Friday, “but I thought that all week. Weekend prices being stronger than Friday prices is surprising,” especially with heat easing off across the West, she said. A Calgary trader reporting C$2.65-70 intra-Alberta numbers agreed, noting that rain had cooled off the city a bit Friday.

In the continuing discussion on liquidity problems and credit crunches, a western source commented: “It is hard to find the big buyers we used to rely on. [Our company] has a tight credit department. We are keeping it in control, but are running out of people to trade with. There are some small shops that have grown fast to fill the void. We never really paid much attention to them because we already had associations with big marketers, but now we are looking at some of those smaller companies turned big. We are growing too, particularly in production. We have always been more about actual gas than trades.”

A marketer reported doing August fixed-price deals Friday at San Juan-Blanco for $2.43-44 and at Waha for $2.78-80. She also traded Blanco at index minus a penny.

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