With air conditioning load staying on the relatively light side outside the desert Southwest, a 33.9-cent screen drop on Wednesday providing highly negative guidance, continued concerns over storage injection space dwindling quickly, and excess supply issues in the West, it was hardly surprising when the cash market experienced double-digit drops across the board Thursday.
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Southwest Heat Helps Some Points Avoid Overall Dips
Hot weather forecasts for the weekend from Texas through the desert Southwest allowed several points in those areas, along with a few other scattered ones, to swim against the tide of overall softness Friday. A majority of the cash market saw drops ranging from a couple of pennies to about 20 cents.
California-Delivered Gas Tops $5/Mcf
Much like on the East Coast a couple of weeks ago, arecord-setting heat wave set in over the weekend in California andthe desert Southwest. The effect on western peaking power pricesMonday wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the $6,000/MWh numbers hitearlier this month in the New England pool; however, gas pricesshowed a much greater impact this time.