Much of Monday’s swing market closely resembled that of Friday:flat to down 3-4 cents. But some points were conspicuous withsubstantially larger decreases. Since CIG and Public Service ofColorado ended price-boosting OFOs over the weekend, prices onCIG-North System and Questar fell by a little over a nickel. Thesteepest plunge by far of almost 20 cents came at CIG-DJ(Denver-Julesburg) Basin, which had soared by a similar amountlast Wednesday after PSCo declared a Restricted Delivery Daysituation.

Except for NorAm flatness, Midcontinent field numbers tended tobe among the day’s softer ones. But the region’s price weakness wasmost acute in Northern Natural’s three main points (field,demarcation point and Ventura), which dropped between a nickel anda dime as the pipe’s primary market area of the Upper Midwest waswarming up.

Cash got a moderate late boost from the futures trading pit. Thescreen was down slightly during most of swing cash business, anOklahoma source said, “then started heading up 7 cents just as wewere starting to wrap things up.” The futures surge came in time tobring last-minute cash quotes up a few cents. Another trader saidNymex’s late-afternoon Access trading session was “down for somereason” about 4 p.m. CDT. “That throws some cash traders into atizzy because they don’t have that crutch [Access] to lean on.”

The swing activity levels by some sources were noticeably lowerMonday as the main part of bidweek got under way, although they hadlittle to report beyond basis talk and trading. A marketer, who washearing Transco Zone 6-NYC at plus 26.5 and TCO at plus 16.25, saidTCO was being bid on a fixed-price basis at $2.45 and offered at$2.52. Based on Monday afternoon’s futures run-up, she thinkssellers currently have the upper hand and most of the convergingwill be done by bidders.

A Midcontinent trader placed Chicago basis at plus 4-4.5 andsaid MichCon was being bid at plus 11 and offered at plus 12. Thetrend appears to be slightly bullish, he said, based on seeing aChicago citygate for May go for $2.35 on an electronic tradingservice after a $2.33 deal had been done earlier. Otherearly-bidweed basis talk included Transco Station 65 at plus 1.5-2,TGT Zone SL at minus 1-1.5, and Southern California border at minus6-7. Other traders were hearing fixed numbers of $2.03-05 for SanJuan-Blanco and $1.95 for Sumas.

One source suggested that Houston traders may be in more of ahurry than usual to close out bidweek deals because “the ShellHouston Open [golf tournament] will be getting down to some seriouscompetition Thursday and Friday.”

©Copyright 1999 Intelligence Press Inc. 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.