In trading that apparently was based more on colder weather later this week than more moderate forecasts for Tuesday in several regions, prices were up at nearly all points Monday. The previous Friday’s screen loss of 6.4 cents proved to be little deterrent to rising prices, while they got a little extra support from the post-weekend return of significant industrial load.

A few points, mostly in New England, saw small dips of up to about a nickel. The rest of the market was flat to about 45 cents higher, with most of the biggest gains occurring in western markets, where new low-linepack issues were surfacing and the Rockies were just starting to rise from subzero lows to single-digit ones.

The cash market failed to be subdued by Friday’s futures weakness; can it do so again? Nymex traders will have more negative guidance for Tuesday’s physical trading after sending the prompt-month January gas contract down 12.3 cents (see related story).

Current unseasonably mild conditions in the Northeast can be expected to stay much the same Tuesday, while the Midwest edges a bit further toward the colder signs. Conditions were relatively moderate in the South through Monday, but the region’s western end will experience a much greater chill toward midweek as a cold front sweeps in from the northwest.

SoCalGas had a high-linepack OFO in place for Saturday only. On Monday the Southern California border and SoCal citygate recorded increases on either side of a quarter, among the day’s biggest gains.

El Paso said it continued to work toward maintaining higher linepack as winter-like weather moves deeper into West Texas and southern New Mexico, but is hampered by San Juan Basin supplies currently performing at 96% of scheduled volume, while Permian Basin/Waha supplies are performing at 97% of scheduled volume. Underperforming locations have been contacted, the pipeline said, and underperformance caps were to be placed on nonperforming supplies for Monday’s gas day. Transwestern, which accesses generally the same supply basins and market areas as El Paso, said late Monday afternoon it was issuing a systemwide low-linepack Alert Day for Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Westcoast said Monday its linepack was trending toward undesirably high levels.

A utility buyer in the South said local gas consumers didn’t seem to be complaining about cold weather as much now as they did when the first blast of wintry conditions came along. Perhaps they got acclimated quickly by that first jolt, he suggested. Nevertheless, virtually all customers have their furnaces running with an overnight low just above freezing predicted for Tuesday, he said, adding that the frigid weather was expected to last three to four days, followed by some weekend warming.

The utility is hitting its daily targets on storage withdrawals, the buyer said, but has the luxury of being flexible in that regard; it can draw more storage when spot prices are going higher, as on Monday, or draw less when prices become favorably lower.

A Midwest marketer reported an opposing trend, saying moderately cold local weather currently would be replaced by highs in the 30s and 20s by the end of the week. The company didn’t buy any new spot gas Monday for client heating needs because it had picked up more than necessary late last week when the prices were lower, she said; now it’s letting the clients work off that excess before dipping into the spot market again.

The Baker Hughes Rotary Rig Count made it five weeks in a row of declining gas-oriented rig counts, saying the number of active units fell another nine to 856 during the week ending Dec. 2. An addition of one in the Gulf of Mexico was more than offset by an onshore drop of 10, Baker Hughes said. Its most recent tally is down 6% from a month ago and 11% less than the year-earlier level.

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