Mixed price movement continued in the cash market Tuesday, but this time it was higher numbers that predominated. Temperatures closer to summer norms are returning Wednesday to the western end of the South and will be rising in sections of New England, although generally New England weather will still be fairly mild. The cash market also was supported by the previous day’s 10.1-cent advance by September futures and by news of potential tropical storm activity.

Several flat to about 95 cents lower points were exceptions to the overall rally. The one plunge was something of an anomaly, as other declines were limited to a little more than a dime.

Gains ranged from 2-3 cents at some points to about C40 cents at Westcoast Station 2, which was recovering from Monday’s plunge as new volumes resulting from the end of a Pine River Gas Plant constraint were being absorbed more readily into the Westcoast system.

El Paso’s San Juan Basin-Bondad pool was where prices dove around 95 cents. Maintenance on a unit at El Paso’s Bondad Station is reducing throughput capacity by 134 MMcf/d through Thursday.

Prices were up about a dime and a little more than a nickel at Florida Gas Zone 3 and the Florida citygate, respectively, despite Florida Gas Transmission ending an Overage Alert Day Tuesday.

An Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft was out checking a broad area of low pressure associated with a tropical wave in the mid-Atlantic Tuesday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. It rated the system as having high potential for development, saying “environmental conditions appear conducive for a tropical depression to form during the next day or so as the system moves west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph.” At 2 p.m. EDT the low-pressure area was about 550 miles east of the Lesser Antilles island chain.

NHC continued to regard another broad low-pressure area about 400 miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic as having only medium potential for strengthening. However, “slow development of this system is possible during the next couple of days as it moves west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph,” the agency said.

Recent widespread rains in the South were due to end for the most part Wednesday, allowing some locations in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and western Tennessee to rejoin Texas with highs of 90 degrees or more. The eastern half of the South, however, will continue to see unseasonably mild peaks in the 80s for a while longer.

Much of New England is also getting a little warmer, but that’s hardly meaningful to the gas market as regional highs will only range from the mid 70s to low 80s, so air conditioning load will still be almost nonexistent. Moderate weather with highs on either side of 80 will be largely unchanged in the lower end of the Northeast, along with the Midwest.

Temperatures are creeping toward 100 in interior California, resulting in gains of about a nickel and nearly 15 cents at the Southern California border and the PG&E citygate, respectively. Otherwise weather is mostly maintaining the status quo in the rest of the West: very hot in the desert Southwest, merely hot in the Rockies, moderate in the Pacific Northwest and cool in Western Canada.

The buyer for a western gas-only distributor said the market is very quiet for him currently because he has very little power generation load to satisfy, and the warm weather that is prevailing in his area means there is almost no gas demand at all.

The National Weather Service predicts below-normal temperatures during the Aug. 18-22 workweek in the south-central area from a base anchored by Louisiana and East Texas and stretching to western New Mexico and central Colorado in the West, through the Midcontinent to the northern borders of Iowa and Illinois in the Midwest, and to western Georgia and eastern Tennessee in the South. The agency looks for above-normal readings in the Northeast (except for Pennsylvania, most of New Jersey and western New York state; in the Big Bend area of Texas; and in an area encompassing all of California and western Arizona, stretching into the Pacific Northwest (except the coastal sections of Oregon and Washington state) and through the western Rockies into the states along the Canadian border from Montana to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Stephen Smith of Stephen Smith Energy Associates is projecting a storage build of 44 Bcf for the week ending Aug. 8. That was down from his original estimate of 49 Bcf, Smith said.

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