A moderate spreading of chillier weather helped keep most eastern points nearly flat, but ranging from about a nickel higher to a dime lower Tuesday. There was a mild bias to the slightly softer side. Meanwhile, despite a new storm moving into the generally sparsely populated upper regions of the West, softening by a nickel or more dominated there.

The biggest declines of about a dime up to 15 cents were concentrated in California, the Rockies and the Southwest basins as fairly mild temperatures were expected today from Southern California through the desert Southwest.

“We’re actually getting a bit more [cold] weather in the Northeast,” said a marketer quoting Texas Eastern M-3 as rising from a little under $3 early into the low to mid $3.00s by mid-morning. But he had seen a forecast calling for regional temperatures to begin returning to five to 10 degrees above normal for December starting today.

A few sources reported expecting basically “more of the same” today but with softness a little more pronounced than on Tuesday.

The market could see a moderate revival for the holiday weekend because white Christmases may be more widespread than it appeared earlier this month, at least one marketer believes. He noted that in Tuesday’s latest six- to 10-day forecast, the National Weather Service predicts that all areas east of a line snaking from the Upper Midwest through the Central Plains into the desert Southwest will experience below normal temperatures in the period immediately preceding and succeeding Christmas Day.

Columbia Gas (TCO), which had opened up an unusual dime-plus premium Friday over Appalachian neighbor Dominion, saw the East’s largest drop of about a dime Tuesday to essential parity with Dominion at $2.70 as TCO supply constraints (see Daily GPI, Dec. 17) apparently were easing.

Several traders predicted a “light” January bidweek. One reflected something of a consensus when he said that due to the uncertainties about weather, which has stayed unusually warm for the most part, and about when people are finally going to start emptying bloated storage inventories, “most traders likely will trade only the barest minimum of baseload necessary to cover their positions.” The corollary to less activity than usual during bidweek, he continued, is a volatile January aftermarket.

Most of the people anticipating finishing most if not all of their bidweek business before leaving for the Christmas weekend appear to be associated with Canadian supplies in some fashion. A Midcontinent marketer noted that Canada will observe the Boxing Day holiday on the day after Christmas, joking that “they don’t care if January options expire that same day.” A Calgary trader appreciated the joke, but noted that although most of his coworkers would be off, a few would come into the office on Boxing Day to take care of options.

Agreeing with the predictions of reduced bidweek action, the Calgary source added: “Don’t move and you won’t get hurt, that’s our philosophy for this bidweek; that is, play it quiet and cool.”

Several non-Canadian traders said their pace of January trading would be dictated by what the market wants. An aggregator was typical: “We expect to still have a fair amount of trading left to do between Christmas and New Year’s. However, you don’t want to get hung out left to dry [by waiting too late] if there’s nobody still wanting to trade with you then.”

©Copyright 2001 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.