All points were falling Monday in the general absence of severewinter weather except in parts of the Upper Midwest. For a change,the softness was relatively consistent; although California onceagain registered declines larger than most at the border and Malin,it was not nearly as out of step with the overall market as itoften had been since March began. Most of Monday’s drops werebetween 10 and 20 cents.

A couple of producers (one Midcontinent, the other Gulf Coast)agreed that although the week had begun on a weak note, they sawpotential for at least a mild rally based on a futures turnaround.”To me, it was a hint of strength when the screen went fromnegative while cash was trading in the morning to up nearly 9 centsin the afternoon,” the Gulf Coast producer said.

The mid-term weather outlook was rather iffy. In its latestsix-to-10-day forecast, the National Weather Service looks fornormal temperatures in the first half of next week on the East andWest Coasts and in the Upper Midwest, but projects below normalreadings from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River and intomuch of the Southeast.

Destin Pipeline already had some intraday gas flowing Mondayafternoon and was taking nominations for today on the timely cycle,a staffer said. He confirmed that BP Amoco had its Pascagoula (MS)Gas Plant in operation again after being given the word by a unitof Williams Field Services that service had been restored on theTri-States Pipeline liquids system about 1 p.m. CST. Destin hadshut in about 600 MMcf/d of offshore production since the plantshut down March 4 due to a leak in the downstream liquids line (seeDaily GPI, March 6).

A WFS spokesman said Tri-States had managed to start up for awhile Saturday, but a couple of pockets of nitrogen were found by acleaning pig, and the line also experienced a valve shutdown,necessitating a further outage until Monday.

The Southern California border got a few quotes slightly under$10 for the first time since Feb. 23 trading for the Feb. 24-26weekend. It averaged about 90 cents below GPI’s first-of-monthindex of $12.58. The border likely will stay soft after retreatingfrom its big spike in early March because SoCal Gas storage worrieshave ceased now that the LDC is injecting again (see Daily GPI,March 9), sources said. SoCal was up to 15 Bcf of working storageMonday, according to a spokeswoman. The 90% daily balancing rule,requiring that level of physically flowing gas and/or firm storage,will be lifted at the end of the month. Non-core customers willreturn to 90% monthly balancing in April 1, which is normal at thistime of year, the spokeswoman said.

A marketer saw a big Kern River-Opal spread, reporting hisinitial purchase in the high $4.50s but a late one about a quarterhigher. He was unsure whether cold Rockies weather or a supplysqueeze might have been responsible.

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