Recent rain gave a boost to storage in the South Island this week, but there's still not a lot of rain showing in the longer term forecasts.

Meanwhile, Contact Energy and Genesis Energy are working to shore up fuel supplies and negotiate better arrangements for purchasing gas from Methanex if the need arises later this year. So even with hydro storage falling, albeit with a pause, we currently look well placed to get through winter even if the water inflows into the hydro lakes stay low. And as we saw again last year, it always eventually rains after a dry spell, and often it pours.

Taken overall, the outlook for winter is not currently raising alarm bells, and so the indexes are not moving much. Looking ahead, we can probably expect more of the same for the next month.