February prices were flat to a little higher Monday, sourcesreported. One said buyers thought they would be able to knockprices down, “but you couldn’t.” There is plenty of demand and it’svirtually all storage-related, he went on. “All of a sudden we’reseeing February turn into an injection month,” and that’s what iskeeping demand high, he said

Late spikes of almost a nickel occurred at Carthage and theSouthern California border, pushing those points up to the high$2.10s and high $2.20s respectively, traders said. Both lateupticks were attributed to buyers being caught short on supply

Waha was among the rare softening points, and a marketer thoughtthat might have been due to a rumor she heard about an unexpectedOasis outage for maintenance, which might have restricted some gasfrom moving eastward from Waha. However, the rumor could not beconfirmed

Bidweek was getting under way and, as usual, there was a lot oftalk but little real trading action other than basis deals. Amarketer found it easy to understand why startup was so slow. Hereported bid-ask ranges at eight Western points, and half of themshowed gaps of about a nickel. Only one of the rest had a range ofless than 3 cents

Midcontinent basis has tightened by almost a penny since latelast week, one source said. She placed Panhandle Eastern at minus11-11.25 and Northern Natural-demarc at minus 10.25. Another tradercalled demarc basis at minus 10 and ANR-Southwest at minus 10.25.Additional basis talk included Trunkline-East LA at minus 9;Transco Zone 6 (NYC) at plus 23-26; Texas Eastern M-3 at plus22-24; and Columbia-Appalachia at plus 8.5-9

In an early indicator of the market under PG&E’s Gas Accord,a marketer was hearing numbers at the PG&E Citygate (an indexthat GPI will introduce in March) of $2.25-30 while gas isavailable at Malin for about $1.85, he said

©Copyright 1998 Intelligence Press. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.