With little to no change in influences from Monday, cash pricessaw little reason for change themselves Tuesday. The result was agenerally flat market, but small declines outweighed the fewup-ticks.

A very slow warm-up had most Northeast citygates softening abit. But, reflecting the continued value of New York City access,Transco’s Zone 6-NYC pool defied the regional trend with a modestincrease.

A Midwest trader noted that Michigan citygates in the mid $3.10swere trading at a much greater premium to the May Henry Hub futurescontract than the April bidweek basis spread. “I’m freezing my[rear end] off; that’s why cash is so strong,” he added.

Except for California, most western points saw small gains. Amarketer reported “a lot of buyers at Opal,” although he wasn’tsure why. However, he could find no San Juan-Blanco buyers for awhile but was glad he waited because eventually demand emergedthere and he was able to make a late sale at $2.73, towards the topend of the Blanco range.

Even though it wasn’t systemwide, a customer-specific OFOdeclaration by PG&E was the chief cause of PG&E citygatesregistering the day’s biggest drop of about a nickel, an aggregatorsaid.

A Gulf Coast producer chose to be optimistic: “There was just acouple of pennies in slippage, and Monday was superstrong, so it’snot really like the market got much weaker.”

A marketer also was bullish, citing the expected strength ofpower generation load this summer and his perception of growingstorage demand.

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