The swing market continued to move higher Tuesday in the East and the Southwest basins, but at significantly reduced momentum. Most points ranged from flat to up about a nickel with only scattered points, mostly in the Northeast, realizing gains of more than a nickel.

Meanwhile in the wild, wild West, Rockies pipes began retreating from Monday’s big price jumps related to a major processing plant constraint, but all California points other than Malin skyrocketed. Southern California border quotes soared by more than a dollar and a half, topping out at $15.60.

The lack of fundamental support for Monday’s upticks had puzzled some traders, but at least they had something a bit more substantial to justify the smaller advances Tuesday. After experiencing near-summer conditions earlier this week, the Northeast is expected to begin a fairly significant cool-down period today that should last at least into the weekend, one aggregator said. It won’t get nearly as cold as last week’s reminders of winter, he said, but should be enough to get furnaces turned on again. However, he added, “that still doesn’t justify these price increases we’re seeing.”

A Gulf Coast producer, noting that prices were barely pennies higher at his Louisiana trading points, said that “was pretty consistent with the way things went out Monday” at the end of cash business.

“I guess they need the gas in California” was a marketer’s speculation about what was behind the state’s non-Malin spikes. Weather there had warmed up considerably after a recent unseasonable chill, he noted. In addition, a few California customers had told him they wanted gas for storage injections.

Although border prices into PG&E rose strongly, border-SoCalGas numbers made even bigger gains to widen their gap to about $3. “It’s kind of scary,” commented a trader. “We’re in a relatively low-load period, but we’re already seeing these kind of prices at the border.”

Malin was California’s oddball point with a drop of about 55 cents. Although PG&E did not issue an OFO, its linepack is near the bottom of its target levels, giving some support to the citygate spike. But Malin, after trading on either side of flat in early deals, “got crushed later” and fell to around the $8 area, a marketer said.

To clarify the Kern River/Opal Plant situation in the Rockies: the plant outage was to be Tuesday-only, but the pipeline’s turbine inspections at Muddy Creek (Unit One) and Fillmore Stations will continue through today. Even though Opal is scheduled for return to full operations today, though, one marketer said he was aware of a sizeable amount of production behind the plant that will remain offline at least until Thursday or later.

The May bidweek remained a slow starter; no surprise there. But one source indicated that California’s price woes are just getting started again. He reported border basis of plus $9.00-10.00 and quoted May fixed-price deals at $15 and slightly higher. Another trader said EnronOnline was posting a Malin bid-ask range of $9.95-10.90 for May Tuesday.

A Northeast marketer quoted May basis (all plus) of 33 cents for Dominion, 26 cents for Columbia Gas and 40 cents for Texas Eastern M-3.

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