Major heat levels in a majority of the West, along with forecasts of rising temperatures in several sections of the East, resulted in rising prices at nearly all points in Monday’s launch of the July aftermarket. The return of industrial load from its typical weekend hiatus gave a little extra push to quotes.

A decline of about a dime at Transco Zone 5 in the Mid-Atlantic was the sole deviation from numbers that were flat to as much as about $1.30 higher. The Rockies market, which had seen softness on the preceding Friday, recorded most of Monday’s largest gains and all three of the triple-digit ones as Denver temperatures are expected to peak in the mid 90s Tuesday.

The new prompt-month August futures contract had mildly negative guidance for the cash market in last Friday’s nickel drop, but will provide much more substantive support Tuesday after registering an advance of 15.5 cents Monday.

The West currently has the lion’s share of high heat levels, but while conditions were fairly moderate Monday in the Midwest and Northeast, they are expected to contribute more cooling load to the market as the week goes on. Both regions are entering warming trends after mild to cool weekends.

Although western sections of the South, along with Florida, are experiencing seasonal highs in the low to mid 90s, most spots east of the Mississippi River will top out in the 80s Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel.

Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) ended an Overage Alert Day during the weekend but reinstated it Monday with the unusually stringent tolerance (for FGT) of 10% on negative daily imbalances. The action had only minimal price-boosting effect, though. Florida Gas Zones 1 and 2 rose about a dime and a nickel, respectively; Florida Gas Zone 3 was flat and the Florida citygate gained a little more than 15 cents.

Prices were strong at first Monday but coming off at the end, a Midcontinent producer said. He was a little surprised that even though temperatures are staying hot in Oklahoma, he was not finding much intrastate demand for gas. The likely cause, he said, is that state hydropower supplies are strong, and that’s displacing some gas-fired generation.

Despite the late decline in prices Monday, which often points out the market’s direction on the following day, the producer thought there was enough overall cooling load to keep the cash market rising Tuesday, especially with the backing it will have from Monday’s screen gain.

A Canadian producer said his main concern Monday was that “every time you flip a month, you’ve got to make sure all your trading arrangements are lined up properly” and, if possible, that trading counterparties are doing the same.

The producer agreed with his Midcontinent counterpart that with the Nymex strength Monday and continuing hot weather throughout most of the West, prices should keep rising Tuesday. Northern market areas in the East may be moderate for now, but they can expect more heat later this week, he noted. Another slightly bullish development, he said, is there’s a little potential of a disturbance in the Atlantic from a low-pressure system off the Cape Verde Islands near West Africa.

Saying Alberta had a “great weekend” for weather, the producer said it’s getting much warmer both in the province and Pacific Northwest. But although temperatures are getting high enough that it could cause wellhead equipment issues, Alberta is “not all that sensitive” to cooling load for gas.

He observed that with the Canada Day holiday occurring Tuesday, it will be very quiet in many of the trading operations north of the border. Westcoast Station 2 traded for flows through Wednesday, he said, but NOVA Inventory Transfer deals were for Tuesday only.

The producer said his ICE screen showed that the volumes were small, but a little bit of July baseload was still being here and there Monday.

Ron Denhardt of Strategic Energy & Economic Research looks for a 96 Bcf storage injection to be reported for the week ending June 27.

The number of drilling rigs engaged in the search for natural gas in the U.S. increased by 16 to 1,530 in the week ending June 27, according to the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/). Its count fell by five in the Gulf of Mexico, but that was more than offset by 21 rigs being activated onshore. The overall tally is up 3% both from a month ago and from the year-earlier level, Baker Hughes said.

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