Driven largely by a futures plunge of 60 cents a day earlier, cash prices fell by large amounts at all but one point Tuesday. Slightly diminishing cooling load in several areas and the growing certainty that Hurricane Bertha will remain a nonevent for Gulf of Mexico production added to the bearish mood.

Virtually all of the market recorded losses ranging from a little more than a quarter to 90 cents or so. Although big declines could be found in various market areas, most of the largest ones were concentrated in the West. A gain of about a dime at thinly quoted MRT averted an across the board run of softness.

Prospects for a rally in the physical market were dim to none after August natural gas futures almost exactly matched Monday’s dive with one of 60.9 cents on Tuesday. There was price carnage throughout Nymex’s energy complex, with crude oil dropping by more than $5/bbl (see related story).

An Overage Alert Day by Florida Gas Transmission, the possibility of which the pipeline had warned about Monday, failed to sustain related prices, as Florida Gas Zone 3 and the Florida citygate fell by about 35 cents and nearly 30 cents, respectively.

Although NOVA Inventory Transfer’s dive of nearly C60 cents was more than twice Westcoast Station 2’s decline, the Alberta trading point still commanded a hefty premium of about C$1.60 to Station 2. Westcoast has had a high-linepack OFO in place since the second day of the month (see Daily GPI, July 2).

A cold front pushing into the Northeast from Canada Wednesday will cause more rainstorm impact than any significant drop in temperatures, according to The Weather Channel (TWC). New York City and Boston will peak on either side of 90 Wednesday, the Weather Central forecasting service said.

Mostly seasonable temperatures are due in the Plains and Midwest, TWC said, with highs mostly in the 80s. Some sections will be moderating, such as Columbus, OH, where Weather Central looks for highs to drop from about 89 Tuesday to the mid 80s Wednesday.

Little change is expected in the South, where thermometer levels are expected to continue hitting the low 90s in most cities.

Western prices were weak all around despite highs still predicted to reach the mid 100s Wednesday from inland California through the desert Southwest. Coastal areas are mild and the Pacific Northwest is slowly retreating from a somewhat unusual foray into the 90s, although Portland, OR, will still see a relatively sultry high in the upper 80s. The Rockies will see a barely perceptible increase in temperatures.

After graduating to “major” hurricane status (Category Three, with winds of 111 mph or greater) Monday afternoon, Bertha gradually retrograded Tuesday back through the Category Two and Category One classifications on the Saffir-Simpson scale. As of 5 p.m. AST Tuesday the storm’s center was about 900 miles southeast of Bermuda and moving toward the northwest, the National Hurricane Center said. A gradual turn to a north-northwest heading was still expected, which meant that Bertha would threaten only Bermuda and North Atlantic shipping lanes.

The National Weather Service’s six- to 10-day forecast for the July 14-18 workweek calls for above-normal temperatures in a wide swath of the central U.S. The area in question stretches from West Texas to the northwest corner of Georgia at its southern end and encompasses the Midcontinent, western two-thirds of the South and most of the Midwest (excluding Wisconsin and the eastern two-thirds of Ohio). It also bulges westward at the northern end through the Upper Plains and northern Rockies to southern Idaho. Below-normal readings are predicted for eastern Maine; most of Florida along with southeast Georgia; and nearly all of California except for a southern coastal strip along with western Oregon and Washington state, all of Arizona and the western half of New Mexico.

Citi Futures Perspective analyst Tim Evans expects storage injections of 95 Bcf, 80 Bcf and 65 Bcf to be reported for the weeks ending July 4, July 11 and July 18, respectively.

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