Other than severe heat in the Southwest and inland California, gas wasn’t getting much weather support Wednesday, as much of the South turned decidedly mild in the wake of a cool front moving southeastward. But prices still managed fairly strong rebounds that were between 10 and 29 cents in most cases, and up to about 30 cents at the PG&E citygate and above 40 cents in San Juan Basin.

Traders cited a Tuesday night rupture of Houston Pipe Line in southeast Texas within a Sunoco oil import terminal as giving a boost to crude oil futures (finishing slightly above $29/bbl in the July contract’s debut as prompt month) and more indirectly to gas futures. The early screen strength Wednesday, tacked onto Tuesday’s late gain and accompanied by ongoing storage buying, was the primary factor in the rally, they said.

However, the HPL rupture caused no injuries and no service interruptions to any customer other than the Sunoco facility (see related story), so its direct impact on the cash market was dismissed as negligible.

A Northeast utility buyer attributed late citygate upticks of about a dime over her early deals primarily to the screen’s guidance. However, area temperatures in the high 60s meant that virtually nobody is turning on either furnaces or air conditioners, but “instead they’re just opening the windows and enjoying it,” she said. That’s a negative for strong gas load, the buyer went on, “but maybe the market needs a break anyway.” She observed that trading was “getting very quiet” with the long holiday weekend approaching.

A Southeast LDC buyer had no numbers to report for Thursday, saying local temperatures in the mid 60s were about 10 degrees below normal for this time of year. He had talked informally with a couple of potential suppliers about June business, but said no specifics were being discussed yet. At this point, he added, “the biggest concern is whether we’ll have a winter supply crisis or not.”

The nuclear power situation in Texas is relaxing. The 1,250 MW South Texas Project 1 nuclear unit is still projected to remain shut down through at least late summer. But the 1,150 MW Comanche Peak 1 unit, which was knocked offline last week by lightning strikes to a transmission line, was back up to 100% operation Tuesday, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (see https://intelligencepress.com/subscribers/power/nrc/ for report of most recent status changes for nukes that have been at less than full capacity). In addition, a cool front moving southeastward through the state Tuesday and Wednesday was reducing air conditioning loads.

The PG&E citygate scraped its way back up to a bare penny-or-so premium above the Southern California border after having traded at an unusual discount of about a dime Monday and Tuesday, a western marketer noted. A two-day suspension of Transwestern deliveries at Needles that had reversed the usual price relationship between the points is due to end Thursday, she said. The citygate was surprisingly strong because it got warmer in California than people had expected, the marketer added. She said that at one point Wednesday cash was trading above next-month levels but was back to flat that afternoon; previously cash had been lower than the nascent June numbers.

San Juan quotes recorded the biggest gains for the second day in a row, but was still in a catch-up mode from Friday’s “crash-and-burn” dive, one source said.

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