Numbers falling as low as the mid $0.40s in the Rockies and a flat Transco Zone 6-NYC belied an overall stronger cash market Tuesday. Excluding the Rockies and Transco citygate, gains ranged from about a nickel to about 20 cents, with those in the low to mid teens most common.

Sources had expected the general bullishness after the screen’s late run-up Monday, and they also noted there would still be some lingering hot weather demand. However, with high temperatures due to moderate Wednesday in the Northeast and parts of the South due to cold fronts moving through, and natural gas futures moving from slightly positive during the morning to down a few cents in the afternoon, they don’t expect Tuesday’s price rally to be extended.

A Gulf Coast marketer remarked that weather-related load was falling off, “but everybody seems to scoop up all our gas quickly.” However, he looks for Tuesday to be this week’s only rebound day, saying that market-area highs in the 70s don’t bode well for higher prices. It was a pretty quiet day in general, he added.

While acknowledging that there’s a good chance of falling prices Wednesday as weather moderates, a Midwestern source said that’s not a certainty. It seems as long as there’s a tropical storm around, even though it poses no threat to Gulf of Mexico production, “there is always somebody trying to ‘hype’ prices higher,” she said. She also suspected that traders expecting a bullish storage report Thursday morning might try to keep prices up, making Wednesday’s market direction hard to call. The source noted that Chicago citygates started in the mid $3.30s and stayed fairly constant for a period while field numbers were strengthening, and then the citygate started moving higher in concert with field prices. “It was best to buy early,” she said.

As anticipated, Tropical Storm Gustav took a turn northward, which caused its outer edges to brush the North Carolina coast. It was considered highly unlikely to reverse field towards the Gulf.

Florida citygates padded their lead as the market’s most expensive point with a jump of about 20 cents into the low $3.90s as Florida Gas Transmission initiated a new Overage Alert Day (OAD) notice at stringent 5% imbalance tolerance after having lifted the previous notice for Monday only. A utility buyer in the state said he had known the OAD would return quickly, adding that when one gets lifted nearly everybody takes advantage of a chance to draft FGT’s system during the brief window of opportunity, “so linepack gets low again.”

The Northeast was still pretty warm Tuesday but due to cool off Wednesday, which created a significant demand and premium for intraday gas, one regional utility buyer said. Intraday Algonquin citygates in the low $4.00 compared with next-day numbers in the low to mid $3.60s, the buyer reported.

There seems to be no relief in sight for beleaguered Rockies producers. Mild to cool weather in much of the area, combined with close-to-full storage facilities and Questar’s insistence on emptying interruptible storage accounts at Clay Basin over the next month (adding extra supplies to an already glutted market), left them barely able to get half a dollar for their gas Tuesday.

A western trader said he cut his normal California volumes extensively because he’s expecting cheaper prices Wednesday. The state’s current inland temperatures in the 90s are likely to be 10 degrees or more lower Thursday, he explained. In addition, California agricultural load is falling off a bit as the processing and drying season (which started in July) starts winding down; it usually ends around mid-September or so, the trader added.

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