Prices were surging again Wednesday in mostly double-digit advances. Traders mentioned late-season storage buying and substitution of gas-fired generation during nuclear plant outages as having minor roles in the bullishness, but for most, it was a case of “following the screen.”

Upticks ranged from a little less than a dime to about a quarter and were fairly evenly distributed across geographic markets, although they tended to be smallest in the Rockies.

Much like last Thursday, the November futures barely managed to rise Wednesday, but those two minuscule gains were sandwiched around three days of more substantial increases. A marketer said drops in crude oil and heating oil futures might limit near-term upside for the gas screen, but noted that crude didn’t fall much below $30/bbl despite reports of the biggest U.S. inventory jumps since April.

Sources said it was difficult to judge how much impact a slew of nuclear plant outages was having on power generation demand for gas because of widespread mild weather. A utility buyer in the Midwest, which is tallying the highest concentration of nuke downtime, said there is “some” power generation demand for gas in the region, “but not a whole lot” because the weather is so moderate. Wednesday’s cash strength mainly derived from the Nymex spike of nearly a quarter the day before, “so far as I can tell,” she said.

The buyer could see little fundamental support for higher cash prices, pointing out that currently there are no tropical storms, no weather extremes, and no significant transportation or supply constraints.

A Northeast trader reported that someone who usually buys about 2 MMcf/d from her on Iroquois had been upping his purchases recently, “so maybe that’s a sign of displacing nuke outages.”

An Upper Midwest marketer said it was “hot enough to turn on the fan in our office today.” Although he was not monitoring electric demand, he supposed there might be some air conditioning load in the Midwest, “especially in places like hospitals and schools,” and that gas-fired power would be replacing output lost by the nuke outages. “But most people just seem to be enjoying the warmth while they can because they know cold weather is just around the corner,” he added.

Buyers in both the Midwest and Northeast said their regions would be cooling down by the weekend following mild midweeks, but neither saw any substantial increase in heating load. The Northeast utility buyer said much colder temperatures weren’t due there until around the end of next week.

Despite solid gains over the past two day, a producer said he sees the cash market “as still relatively weak” because Henry Hub numbers continue to lag so far behind the November screen. The Hub made up some ground Wednesday by jumping nearly 20 cents, he acknowledged, but it remained about 30 cents below futures. Because “the Nymex is overbought,” he expects most price convergence between now and the end of October to be the screen coming down toward cash rather than vice versa.

Although Florida Gas Transmission lifted an Overage Alert Day notice (see Transportation Notes), a Texas source with production on the system said he could “definitely detect more buying on FGT this week, including intraday calls,” than last week when the pipeline said an Underage Alert Day notice might be issued.

The National Weather Service’s outlook for next week (Oct. 13-17) calls for temperatures above normal in the West and below normal in the East. Only New England, New York, the coastal Mid-Atlantic and peninsular Florida are expected to see normal readings in the East, NWS said. It called for above normal temperatures almost everywhere west of a line running from central New Mexico through western Montana, with the exception of a below normal strip along coastal Southern California. A wide band of normal weather is predicted for the central U.S. from the Dakotas and Minnesota through Texas.

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