Most sources were seeing bidweek prices running approximatelyflat Monday compared to the previous Friday, although a marketersaid some Southwest numbers were “up about a penny.” On the otherhand, a buyer who paid in the low $1.70s in the NGPL Midcontinentpool Friday said he was hearing of $1.69 deals Monday.

San Juan-Blanco quotes for April were in the $1.57-59 range buttending to back off slightly after hitting $1.59, one trader said.Similarly, another trader saw Chicago citygates retreating to$1.87-88 after peaking at $1.89.

South Texas basis for Texas Eastern and Tennessee is tighterthan usual at minus 7.25, a trader said. She indicated basis ofminus 9-10 was more appropriate for that market at this time ofyear.

For a Rocky Mountain region utility buyer, it was the same storyas last bidweek: no matter how low sellers were willing to go ontheir price offers, he had absolutely nowhere to take the gas.”We’ll be living off storage for at least another month,” he said.

While a Calgary trader was calling this “one of the quietestbidweeks I can remember in some time,” a California sourcecommented, “It was very hectic today [Monday]. It seemed that allthe marketers waited to do business until the last minute.”

The late March swing market turned in a mixed performanceMonday, with small price declines of a couple of cents or so in theEast arrayed against small increases in the West. A marketer saidhe saw a small but significant “kick up in gas burns for electricgeneration on the West Coast.” The Palo Verde and San Onofrenuclear plants both had units going down for refueling, he noted,saying power prices were sharply on the rise. Arizona PublicService shut its 1,221 MW Palo Verde 2 nuclear unit for refuelingFriday, and Southern California Edison shut down the 1,047 MW SanOnofre 3 unit for refueling and maintenance on Saturday. San Onofreis expected to be down for 55 days.

Despite the East’s general swing softening, a marketer reportedHenry Hub starting slightly lower at $1.81-82 but then graduallytrending higher to converge with April business. Late deals forboth months were done at $1.865, she said.

A Rockies trader said incremental prices were inching up late inthe morning, mostly in sympathy with a slightly stronger screenthat waited until afternoon to settle down just 0.2 cents.

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