Several points were able to rebound Monday from Friday’s across the board plunges based on rising heat levels in much of the East and the return of industrial load from its usual weekend timeout, but for the most part cash prices continued to move lower due to cooling load remaining fairly moderate in northern market areas and the screen’s 23.9-cent decline on Friday, which capped a full trading week of losses for the August natural gas contract.

Most of the spot market saw declines ranging from 2-3 cents to about half a dollar, with most of the biggest drops occurring in the Rockies. Other points were flat to about 20 cents higher; Northeast citygates tended to rack up most of the largest gains.

August futures will offer moderate support to Tuesday’s cash market after they broke last week’s string of softness with a 7.9-cent uptick in their penultimate day of trading (see related story).

The Midwest and Northeast are starting the week with considerably warmer temperatures than they went into the weekend with. However, it’s hardly a heat wave with few if any locations expected to get above 90 Tuesday.

As analyst Tim Evans with Citi Futures Perspective has been pointing out recently, the gas market will be better supported when most of the intense heat is concentrated in the South, where the power generation fleet includes more gas-fired peaking units than other regions. Well, it’s starting to get that support with nearly all cities in the South forecast to be peaking in at least the 90s Tuesday and such locations in the central section as Memphis, TN, Little Rock, AR, and Jackson, MS expected to hit the century mark on the thermometer. Oklahoma City and several Texas cities also are in for highs around 100.

The Rockies are still peaking in the low to mid 90s and the desert Southwest is still getting into the 100s, but otherwise the western climate is a bit too mild at this point to boost prices at most points. The West Coast, Pacific Northwest and Western Canada are limited to highs in the 70s, and even interior California sites such as Sacramento are only getting to about 90 degrees.

The remnants of Hurricane Dolly still have a little fight in them, having flooded the area around Ruidoso, NM, during the weekend. But all is quiet on the Atlantic tropical scene. The National Hurricane Center said shower and thunderstorm activity Monday in the northern Gulf of Mexico south of Mississippi and Alabama was associated with a weak surface trough of low pressure. “No significant development of this system is expected as the trough moves slowly northwestward,” the agency added.

Kern River quotes were down about 15 cents despite the pipeline reporting low linepack systemwide Monday.

Noting the return of warmer weather in the Northeast and heat levels starting to break 100 degrees in the central South, a Gulf Coast producer said he thinks cash prices should be able to at least “maintain” their current levels Tuesday if not go a little higher. Monday’s futures increase will help out in that regard, he said.

August bidweek prices tended to be slightly higher Monday than they were Friday, the producer added.

The Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count (https://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/) reported that the number of drilling rigs engaged in a search for gas jumped by 21 to 1,555 in the week ending July 25. All of the increase occurred onshore, Baker Hughes said, as its Gulf of Mexico tally dropped by two. The latest total is up 2% from a month earlier and 5% higher than the year-ago level.

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