Most of the cash market continued to sink a few cents lowerMonday in price showings that ranged from essentially flat to downmore than a dime on ANR’s Southeast Mainline, which is experiencinga capacity curtailment of about 100 MMcf/d during May due tocompressor maintenance.

But just as a transportation constraint caused ANR-Southeastprices to fall 11 cents, a supply shortfall caused San Juan Basinprices to soar higher by a like amount. A one-day annualmaintenance shutdown at Williams Field Services’ Ignacio Plant,which usually occurs during the first week of each May, is limitingthe plant to about 125 MMcf/d of production for today’s gas day,about 400 MMcf/d under its recent average, a WFS spokesman said.However, those lost volumes will begin returning quickly at thestart of Wednesday’s gas day, he added.

The supply squeeze took Blanco pool prices as high as $2.04Monday, although a marketer reported that the last trade of the dayon an electronic service had retreated slightly to $2.00.

In addition to the San Juan strength, Western points in generalmanaged flat to slightly higher performances or fell no more than acouple of cents. Chilly weather is still lingering in the region,and the much heralded onslaught of hydropower production, which isexpected to take a large bite out of gas load for power generation,was still in abeyance for the most part. It remains cold enough inthe Pacific Northwest that little mountain snowmelt has occurred,so hydro hasn’t come on strong yet, one source said. But when itdoes, “watch out for falling [gas] prices.”

A Texas producer, not liking the market outlook, didn’t botherto do any fixed-price deals. “What we need is some heat in Texas,”he said, speculating that maybe heat will arrive after a broad areaof thunderstorms pulls out of the state. But another trader doesn’texpect any serious air conditioning load anytime soon, saying shethinks it won’t get “real warm” around Houston until the last halfof May.

It’s kind of like “toss a coin and make your guess” aboutwhether cash will rebound today, a marketer said. However, thereare so many long positions in the Nymex futures trading pit thatshe expects the screen to either keep cash gas from rising or evendrag it lower.

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