A rebound from last week’s swing price weakness came sooner thanmany traders expected, but it happened for precisely the reasonthey had anticipated. “When we finally get some cold weather,prices will start turning upward again” summarized the conventionalwisdom of a number of traders last week.

Monday’s upticks tended to range from a nickel or less in theMidwest/Midcontinent and on some Gulf Coast pipes to a quarter ormore at most Northeast citygates. “It got colder over the weekendthan they [Northeast utilities and end-users] expected,” explainedone marketer. Texas Eastern M-3 and Transco’s Zone 6 pools wereespecially strong, she noted. That strength was reflected inproduction-area pricing, where increases on either side of 20 cents(handily surpassing other Gulf Coast gains) prevailed in TexasEastern’s South Texas, East Texas, West Louisiana, East Louisianaand M-1 (Kosciusko) pools and at Transco’s Station 30 and Station45 pooling points.

Although the midsection of the U.S. was largely spared, chillyand wet weather was settling into the Northeast and Northwestquadrants of the nation. That was essentially enough to offset agenerally much softer screen, a trader said. He wasn’t surprised tosee the Nymex come off further, “but that morning attempt at arally [about a nickel higher at one point] certainly was amystery.”

Northwest’s continued entitlement of the northern half of itssystem and its notice of a potential OFO (see Transportation Notes)had the predictable effect of giving a tremendous boost to PacificNorthwest points associated with Canadian gas (Sumas, Stanfield andKingsgate) and suppressing gains at Rockies points.Northwest-domestic barely eked out any advance at all, while aSumas uptick of about a quarter widened their spread to about 30cents.

Many sources had finished or were close to wrapping up Novemberbidweek deals by the end of Monday. A trader at eastern points saidhe could detect little change in pricing from Friday. However, awestern-oriented marketer said her November numbers were downlargely due to the screen downturn. She reported having traded ElPaso-Permian from the upper $4.50s to the lower $4.40s last week,but her deals Monday ranged throughout the $4.30s. On the otherhand, a Malin trader said his prices fell from an initial $5.20Wednesday to $5.07 Friday, but he was still hearing $5.07 quotesfor Malin Monday.

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