The cash market turned in another strong performance Tuesday,even with little in the way of either heating or cooling load forsupport.

Upward momentum built further as Tuesday’s increases uniformlywere greater than those on Monday. Virtually all points roseTuesday between about a nickel and a little more than a dime; gainsin the vicinity of a dime were most common. Sources mentionedcontinuing screen strength and storage refill concerns “that justrefuse to go away,” as a producer put it, as the basis for cashupticks.

A marketer who trades Appalachia and the Northeast still foundthe high prices a mystery. “Where is all this price strength comingfrom? Weather is mild almost everywhere,” she said. The marketeralso noted that her trading activity has been light recently”because the transportation spreads aren’t working very well rightnow. It’s hard to cover your variable costs into the Northeast fromeither the Gulf Coast or Niagara.”

Another trader sees the market “as kind of a vicious circle.” Arising screen perpetuates the higher cash prices, she said, andthat in turn feeds strength back into futures. Basis for June andthe rest of the summer keeps widening as the screen goes higher,she said, but still remains relatively strong.

The Southern California border was by far one of the West’sstrongest points, according to one marketer. He thought it was relatedto the Diablo Canyon nuclear unit that went down Sunday due to anelectrical fire (see brief, this issueand Daily GPI, May 16) being taken intocold shutdown by PG&E. The utility had expected to return the unitto service later this week but now thinks it will be down longer thanoriginally expected, he said.

Sumas numbers were running a few cents above domestic pricesinto Northwest for one Calgary source, after the two points hadbeen at near-parity the day before. Westcoast’s McMahon Planttripping off early Tuesday morning and being down about eight hoursmay have affected the Sumas premium, she said. She estimated theoutage affected about 130 MMcf/d of production. Westcoast’sbulletin board said the pipe would be about 80 MMcf short oftoday’s desired linepack target and thus imbalance tolerances wereset at 20% for packing and zero for drafting.

Noting Canada’s Victoria Day holiday approaching next Monday,another Calgary trader said, “I’ll probably come in and do somedeals anyway because the Nymex doesn’t take notice of QueenVictoria’s birthday.”

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