Unlike the previous week, there was no major rebound Monday from plunging prices going into the weekend. But new softness was capped at a quarter’s decline, and only a few points outside the Rockies and Northeast fell by 20 cents or more. A couple of scattered moderate gains were recorded, and most of the rest of the market ranged from flat to down 18 cents.

As expected, weather trends were moderating after a cold weekend across the northern half of the U.S. and Canada and a bit of chill in the South. The Northeast was setting date-specific record lows at some locations early Monday morning, but starting to see milder conditions that afternoon after a front moved out into the Atlantic.

The question was, when would a resurgence of frigid weather begin to rally cash quotes? According to The Weather Channel, near-freezing lows will be affecting the Midwest by late Wednesday but wouldn’t get into the Northeast until Thursday morning. That had at least one source looking for small upticks as early as Tuesday, but others thought the market would stay soft another day before renewed heating load kicks in to any significant degree.

The energy futures complex certainly wasn’t handing out any clues to cash traders, being little changed Monday for natural gas, crude oil and heating oil.

A high-linepack OFO by Sonat (see Transportation Notes) seemed to have little impact on that pipe’s prices, which were down only about a nickel.

A Midwest trader said he saw utilities buying gas Monday both in the field for transport and at the citygate. He detected a small bullish sign in Northern Natural Gas taking bids through Tuesday morning (see Transportation Notes) to buy gas for operational purposes (read that as bolstering linepack, the trader said). The impending pipeline purchase undoubtedly was related to another bulletin board posting that projected NNG’s system weighted average temperatures at 42 degrees for Monday and Tuesday this week, followed by levels of 27 Wednesday and 33 Thursday.

More production from Jonah Field was being restored at Opal Plant following intraday cuts being made late last week (see Daily GPI, Nov. 10). A source reported hearing from plant operator Williams Field Services that the high water content problems were being resolved gradually and that volumes would continue to grow Tuesday.

A western marketer said tight spreads were a problem. With mild Texas temperatures creating little intrastate generation demand and the Midcontinent/Midwest markets weak, she tried to move Permian/Waha gas westward but said it was hard to find a decent margin between production-area prices and ones about 20 cents higher at the Southern California border after paying transport.

An East Coast utility buyer had no quotes Monday, saying she had traded a lot of gas Friday for flow through Wednesday “because we’re short-staffed today [Monday] and Tuesday is a holiday.” The buyer acknowledged that not many other traders would be getting Veterans Day off because of Nymex being active.

A tropical wave was moving westward through the eastern Caribbean Sea, causing flood watches for Puerto Rico, The Weather Channel said, but further tropical development was not expected.

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