Finding little of significance in new price influences upon emerging from the Easter weekend, virtually all of the cash market was content to mark time Monday. Outside of declines ranging to nearly a quarter in the Rockies, most other points stayed within about a nickel up or down from flat. There was a slight bias to the upside.

With forecasts of generally mild temperatures through this week hinting at mild softness over the next few days, traders looked seaward for their fix of weather news. It kind of figures that after both storage injections and withdrawals have been made out of season, the Atlantic hurricane season would show no respect for the calendar either. Six weeks before the traditional June 1 start of the season, subtropical storm Ana was moving east-southeast about 140 miles south-southwest of Bermuda early Monday morning.

Although one source thought Ana might have been responsible for a brief flash of Nymex bullishness, another said it was hard to believe anyone could have accorded the storm any potential market impact. Although a tropical storm warning was in effect for Bermuda, Ana was expected to pose no danger to anything other than shipping in the immediate area. It was only the second known tropical or subtropical storm to form in April, said a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami; the other was in 1992.

Western traders agreed that activity in their region was largely featureless. PG&E got its Diablo Canyon 2 nuclear unit back online, which cut a bit into “decent” power generation load for gas, a California-based marketer said. Temperatures are still cooler than normal but due to warm up as the week goes on, he said.

It’s too early to have to start worrying about storms, “even if they’re only subtropical,” a Gulf Coast marketer said. He’s waiting for something to develop in the weather outlook; right now it’s too warm in the South for any significant cooling load, and too cool for air conditioning to boost power generation demand, the marketer said.

Most sources said it was still “too early” to get into May trading yet. However, the above marketer reported selling at Columbia Gulf-mainline at basis of plus 5.5 cents.

A Midcontinent/Midwest trader reporting a Northern Natural-Ventura deal for May at index minus 4 cents said he expects all index trading in his market area to be at significant discounts. For instance, he was hearing Panhandle Eastern being discussed at index minus 7 cents.

The East Coast Natural Gas Cooperative will hold its monthly Internet-based auction for up to 60 MMcf/d of May baseload gas on Wednesday. Co-op members are NUI, Consolidated Edison of New York, PECO Energy and Delmarva Power & Light. The auction will be conducted through the https://www.TerraMotus.com web site. Call PECO’s Jerry Sercio at (610) 832-6406 or NUI’s Joe Lachowiec at (908) 719-4237 for more information.

A Florida utility buyer said May is always a “tricky” month for gauging load in advance. For that reason he anticipates doing minimal baseload business “again” and riding with the flow of the aftermarket.

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