Although generally moving a little bit below index levels, theinitial February aftermarket proved stronger Monday than manytraders were expecting. Several points managed to stay flat toindex. Considering how little weather demand there was in majormarket areas and the difficulty some suppliers reported inscrounging up buyers, it was surprising how little price erosionthere was, a Texas marketer said.

Sources who complained about how boring much of January’s marketwas so far are seeing little change in the new month. Virtuallyeveryone contacted by Daily GPI had a comment along the lines of”It was so dead today,” as a marketer put it. “I don’t think it’sgoing to get much livelier anytime soon,” said another trader.

A lot of people were trying to talk prices down in the Southwestbasins but not having much success, according to a marketer.

One source reported a “bunch of bids but few offers” onColumbia-Appalachia. Numbers there firmed from the high $1.80s intothe low $1.90s but then fell back again as deadline approached, hesaid.

Although everything seems to be back to normal at the McMahonPlant, Westcoast apparently is being cautious in not yet liftinglast week’s force majeure declaration at the plant (see Daily GPI,Jan. 29), a Calgary trader said.

A player in the Texas market said a storage play that had beenworking in late January was no longer feasible on the first tradingday of February. “South Texas basis has to be at least minus 10 orgreater from the screen for us to make the play,” he said. With theNymex futures drop to $1.744 Monday, South Texas cash prices wererunning barely 2-3 cents below it.

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