Market dynamics were as tumultuous as ever Monday astriple-digit gains from the Rockies/Southwest eastward were insharp contrast to huge declines at most California and PacificNorthwest points. In that latter group only the Southern Californiaborder, which notched yet another price record at $69, achieved anadvance in price average, and even it was plunging as “low” as $30near deadline.

Chicago citygates jumped more than $4 as a blizzard ravaged thecity and left sub-freezing temperatures in its wake. However,citygate quotes that exceeded $15 in early deals were falling below$10 late, said a producer who thought buyers “got a little panickedat first.”

A Midcontinent trader believes that whether eastern prices stayon an upward track “depends largely on how many wellheadfreeze-offs we have.” He said he was aware of freeze-offs inOklahoma, Kansas and the Texas Panhandle, “but they’re not seriousyet.” Cold weather will continue to do its part on the demand sidebecause freezing temperatures will stick around at least until theweekend, he said. And although cash numbers had much more influenceon futures Monday than vice versa, he said, the screen’s heftyadvance helps point the way to stronger cash prices as the weekproceeds.

Sumas, Stanfield, Malin and the PG&E citygate all plungedheavily due to Northwest Pipeline relaxing its entitlement a bit (seeTransportation Notes) and the fact thatthe winter storm hitting the Pacific Northwest Monday wasn’t as severeas originally predicted, sources said. Sumas fell as low as $16 as alot of supply offers were emerging late, a marketer said. In fact, headded, “we were able to buy intraday gas at Sumas over the weekend for$20.”

Sumas prices never really should have been up to $50-60 in thefirst place, the marketer continued. Such heights were purely afunction of the California market last week, he added. The marketercommented that more moderate Pacific Northwest temperatures thanexpected might have been the salvation of California’s power marketMonday, which nevertheless was under a Stage One ElectricalEmergency alert. “It might be somewhat exciting [in the energymarkets] if the California power grid collapsed, but I’m justafraid that the same thing might be coming to a theater near me.”

The California Power Exchange was having to exceed its price”cap” of $250/MWh during each hour of same-day peaking purchasesMonday, going as high as $818 at one point. Even more remarkable,however, was Cal-PX exceeding $1,000 several times in the day-aheadmarket (that is, electricity bought Monday for use today).

The 1,100 MW Diablo Canyon 2 nuclear unit returned to 100%operation Monday after going down over the weekend for maintenancethat had been deferred from the first of the month, PG&E said.There were no remaining nuclear outages of any significance in theWest, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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