Most of the cash market ranged from flat to a little over anickel higher Monday, but that mild showing of firmness isn’texpected to survive into today.

In fact, the points that opened higher tended to drop back asthe morning wore on in response to the screen’s falling a fewcents, sources said. But because the March futures contract waiteduntil after cash business had closed to take most of its steepdive, most of its negative impact won’t be felt until today, theyadded.

“After watching the screen this afternoon, everybody’s grabbinghold of their shorts [underwear] in preparation” for a big priceride downhill today, a Texas-based producer colorfully commented.

There was very little weather demand out west, said a marketerwho saw Permian Basin numbers fall 7 cents from his first deal ofthe day at $2.50. And western prices got little of the support theyhad been receiving recently from the Texas intrastate market, whereweather was too mild for much gas load, he said. Even a unittripping off over the weekend at the South Texas Nuclear Projecthad virtually no impact on the gas market, he added.

The marketing representative of a group of producers saidseveral members of the group apparently were fortunate in havingbaseloaded quite a bit of their swing gas last week. “They said,’We like these prices in the early February aftermarket and don’tthink they’re going to get much higher,'” so they sold whateverthey could in baseload deals, the representative said. That’s takena substantial amount of swing gas off the market, he said.

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