The cash market relied on a continuance of moderate cooling load in the South — and not much else — in realizing small gains at most points Tuesday. The overall advance defied the previous day’s 13.7-cent drop by July futures and the fact that north of the southern third of the U.S. weather-based demand is almost nonexistent.

Most of Tuesday’s minority losses ranging from a couple of pennies to nearly 20 cents occurred in the Rockies, Midcontinent and Western Canada, where Alberta’s high temperatures were due to start reaching a relatively balmy low to mid 70s Wednesday. Almost all of the points that were flat to about 20 cents higher saw gains of about a nickel or less.

The screen will follow up its negative guidance for Tuesday’s cash market with no leadership at all for Wednesday after closing unchanged (see related story).

Florida Gas Transmission indicated the recent growth of cooling load in the South by cautioning market-area shippers that it might need to issue an Overage Alert Day because of warm weather forecasts for Florida. As a result, the Florida citygate recorded Tuesday’s biggest uptick and Florida Gas Zone 3 rose a little more than a nickel.

But the source of the market’s modest firmness remained elusive otherwise. Lows dipping into the 40s in upper New England and sections of the Rockies may have provided a small boost in heating load, but cool to moderate conditions continue to prevail in the overall weather picture.

Other than linepack remaining above target levels on the Westcoast system, issues with excess supply have dissipated in the West after El Paso ended a Strained Operating Condition caused by high linepack.

A Texas-based marketer said he was not surprised that most cash numbers achieved small gains Tuesday even after a prior-day screen loss. “We’ve got a ‘little bit of weather’ here and there,” he said, including 90-degree-plus heat in the South. True, the abundance of storage early in the injection season looms as a major bearish influence, he said, but for now that issue is still a ways down the market road.

Noting that futures closed only barely higher Tuesday, the marketer said he still thinks that will be enough to sustain a small overall advance in most of the cash market Wednesday. Much as it has been since the end of bidweek, the June aftermarket remains pretty quiet for the most part, he said.

In its six- to 10-day forecast for the June 15-19 workweek, the National Weather Service (NWS) looks for below-normal temperatures from the Northeast and northern Mid-Atlantic through the Chicago area and eastern Wisconsin. It also predicts below-normal readings in nearly all of the West as far eastward as western Nebraska except for normal conditions in Washington state, the northern end of Idaho and the northern half of Oregon. The NWS forecast calls for above-normal temperatures everywhere south of a line extending westward from southern North Carolina to the Oklahoma Panhandle, where it dips to the southwest through eastern New Mexico. Above-normal mercury levels are also due along the Canadian border from the northeastern corner of Montana through most of the northern edge of Minnesota, NWS said.

Stephen Smith of Stephen Smith Energy Associates said he is a projecting a storage build of 106 Bcf to be announced for the week ending June 5. That was slightly lower than his previous estimate of 109 Bcf, Smith said.

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