Prices were down as expected at most points Friday following the previous day’s futures dive of more than half a dollar, but a few scattered points — primarily in the Midcontinent and West — were able to defy the screen weakness and post gains. Cooling load was slowly spreading northward from the South through the Southwest but was not substantive enough yet outside the southern U.S. to make a market difference.

The weekend loss of industrial load was only a partial factor in Friday’s overall bearishness. Because of the transition to a new month Sunday, Friday’s deals were for Sunday-Monday only. Saturday flows were covered in Thursday trading.

Most prices were down anywhere from a little less than a nickel to about 40 cents. The Rockies/San Juan and Midcontinent markets had the lion’s share of points ranging from flat to about 15 cents higher.

Following their tumble Thursday, July gas futures will provide support to Monday’s cash trading after rebounding by 22.9 cents Friday.

Although a cold front will keep the Northeast relatively mild early this week, a warm front will be arriving around Sunday in the Midwest to sustain high temperatures that were already reaching the low to mid 80s in many locations Friday and/or Saturday.

The South is starting to feel more and more summery as peak temperatures reaching the low 90s in much of the region are expected to continue and perhaps rise further.

The Florida citygate gained a nickel as Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) kept an Overage Alert Day in place through at least Friday, but production-area numbers into FGT fell.

PG&E and SoCalGas ended two-day high-linepack OFOs Saturday as previously cool conditions in interior California were being replaced by highs in the low 80s. However, only border quotes into PG&E were able to rally as a result; Malin, the PG&E citygate and the Southern California border into SoCal continued to decline.

The West is getting more cooling load in other places besides inland California. Forecasts of the low 80s in Denver helped keep a floor under Rockies quotes, and the desert Southwest is pushing into triple-digit highs again, which spurred a rally in San Juan Basin Friday.

Northern Natural Gas (NNG) spokesman Mike Loeffler said Friday the pipeline had repaired minor storm damage to its Town Border Station interconnect with MidAmerican Energy and natural gas service was available again to the tornado-devastated town of Parkersburg, IA (see Daily GPI, May 28). However, it may be some time, if ever, before Parkersburg needs gas again, Loeffler said, because a field representative had told him the local situation was “really, really bad” and it might be “many months” before substantive rebuilding of the town is effected.

The June aftermarket appeared to be starting out below first-of-month indexes, said a Gulf Coast trader, but that may not last long. “Nobody seemed to have a place to put gas” on Sunday, but she reported getting a lot of calls for Monday-only gas. She thought that was due an expected increase of power generation load, especially in the South. She was on the road Friday, but expected to try to fill some of the Monday-only requests by scheduling some intraday gas for the buyers Monday morning.

The trader said she thinks cash gas will be higher Monday, citing the factors of likely increases in cooling load, Friday’s futures gain and the post-weekend return of industrial demand. For the near term, though, she expects the Nymex natural gas contract to tend to follow crude price movement.

Only a week after recording one of the largest jumps of drilling rigs searching for gas in the U.S. so far this year (see Daily GPI, May 28), the Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/) said the number had fallen by 14 to 1,479 in the week ending May 30. All of the decline occurred onshore, as the Gulf of Mexico count was unchanged, Baker Hughes said.

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