The market eked out small increases Tuesday that generally were a nickel or less. A screen uptick of nearly a dime provided some upward momentum, sources said, but cash traders more likely were anticipating what is expected to be the smallest AGA storage injection report in many weeks.

The market has turned completely opposite from where it was last week when Henry Hub was at a premium to the screen, said a Gulf Coast traders. Now the Hub is flat or below Nymex, “which shows that real-time demand is just not there,” he said. With swing prices substantially below index, “everybody’s turned to buying on a just-in-time basis now.” He expects futures to keep trending a bit higher today due to the AGA report expectations.

Cheyenne Hub numbers tumbled as a one-day outage of most WIC deliveries to the Hub came to an end. CIG recovered about 20 cents in one of Tuesday’s largest advances, as dual-connect gas that had flooded CIG due to the WIC shutdown found an alternative outlet again.

A low-linepack OFO by PG&E (see Transportation Notes) was the major driver behind increases of 13 – 15 cents at the PG&E citygate and PG&E-Topock points respectively. Citygate quotes were moving higher as the morning went on due to people getting caught short after the OFO posting, said a buyer reporting larger gate volumes than usual.

The upturns at the two PG&E points put them in the unusual position of running substantially higher than border-SoCalGas, which fell a dime. The difference was enough to prompt one marketer to shut down his transport into SoCalGas and take border gas to PG&E-Topock instead. The main reasons for border-SoCal softness was that the LDC “is about 30 Bcf ahead in storage compared to this time last year” and Los Angeles-area weather is very mild, he said. There is just not enough cooling load in east-of-California markets to prop up border prices, he said. He dismissed the selling of storage gas into the general market by SoCalGas as a significant market influence. “There is only 30 MMcf/d of East Montebello [storage field] deliverability, so it is having minimal day-to-day impact. It’s going to take a long time for them [SoCalGas] to empty that cushion gas; that’s why they’re abandoning the field.”

Waha got very strong towards the end of trading due to high intrastate Texas power demand, a western source said. He reported trading Waha at $2.93-97 most of morning, “but then it got up to $3.10 as ICE [IntercontinentalExchange] bids jumped 2 cents at a time.” That was largely in response to ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) day-ahead prices rising $9 to $50/MWh, which the source estimated as “equivalent to five-buck gas.”

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