Despite softer futures and continued relatively mild late-January weather outside the West and Upper Plains, prices either leveled off around flat or registered small gains nearly across the board Monday. Most of the larger increases of about a nickel occurred on Midcontinent and Rockies/Pacific Northwest pipes, because that’s where the worst winter weather was concentrated.

Those medium-term forecasts last week for above normal temperatures over the eastern half of the U.S. in the waning days of January apparently overstated the likelihood of warmth, according to a marketer. Although the Northeast and Lower Midwest were still unseasonably mild they were due for invasion by an arctic cold fronts today. The Southeast and Mid-Atlantic will enjoy at least one more day of spring-like weather today, according to The Weather Channel.

Another source questioned how overstated it was when the temperature hit 70 degrees in Washington Monday, and the continued warm spring weather has caused some of the cherry blossoms to flower more than two months early.

Northern Natural Gas declared an OFO for today (see Transportation Notes) in its market-area zones because temperatures there were already freezing. NNG quotes were among Monday’s biggest gainers at 5-7 cents up.

The frigid front in the Upper Plains was moving south, and sources in Tulsa, Dallas and Houston said it was expected to reach their areas Monday night, Wednesday and Thursday nights, respectively. However, they agreed that between an eroding screen and the abundance of storage on hand, the front was unlikely to be strong enough to keep prices up.

Even with Alberta still “brutally cold,” in the words of a Calgary-based producer, provincial prices fell a little more than C5 cents into the low C$2.80s. NOVA had finished tie-in work in the northern reaches of Alberta Saturday morning, he said, restoring a significant amount of field receipts that had been shut in temporarily and allowing the pipeline to return to normal imbalance tolerances of +10%/-10%. Intra-Alberta’s tendency to follow the screen also was a probable factor, he said.

Even with snowy conditions reaching as far south as the mountains of Southern California, there was little effect on basically flat prices in the state. PG&E was projecting system storage withdrawals of slightly more than 1 Bcf/d for Monday and today, and a marketer said SoCalGas was hitting the storage books just about as hard.

“What happened to all those forecasters back in October who were saying November-December would be pretty warm, but then we’d see an extra-cold back half of winter?” an East Coast utility buyer asked, somewhat rhetorically. Even as recently as late December “they” were saying January would be very cold, and it just hasn’t happened, he went on. There’s so much storage in the ground that sooner or later it’s got to start having more impact, as people with must-cycle accounts start running out of withdrawal time, the buyer said, concluding, “I think by the end of February prices are going to be in real trouble.”

Bidweek activity picked up a bit Monday but still remained on the slow side, as many prefer to wait for today’s February futures settlement. Basis was strengthening, sources in several market areas said, largely in deference to a screen drop that eventually exceeded a dime in the afternoon.

A marketer was hearing border-SoCalGas basis at plus 3-4 cents Monday morning, but saw it being offered on-line at plus 5 cents that afternoon. That would have put fixed prices around $1.95-96, down from a $2.62 index in January.

A lot more suppliers than usual seem to be trying to hold back more swing gas for the February aftermarket, a Southeastern LDC buyer said. She considered that a reflection of both Nymex being down Friday and Monday, “and that they’re hoping the elusive cold weather they’ve been hearing about, but not experiencing will finally come along next month.”

Fixed-price quotes were still meager, but a producer reported doing interstate deals from South Texas in the high $1.80s. A sampling of basis quotes included: Chicago plus 2.75-3.5 cents; Florida citygate plus 30 cents; Texas Eastern M-3 plus 42 cents; and Transco Station 65 plus 3.75 cents. A trader said MRT had tightened to minus 1.5 cents, adding that he might have made a deal at minus 3 cents but wasn’t sure of even that since there was so much storage to use.

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