The retreat of Northeast citygates from last week’s lofty levelswas still under way Monday, but the rate of decline was slowing.Otherwise, except for softening at Rockies and PacificNorthwest/western Canada points and moderate firmness at Midwestcitygates; flat to slightly lower pricing dominated the west of themarket.

Instead of Northeast averages falling by about $3 to more than$6.50 as on Friday, Monday’s drops ranged from less than a dollarat Iroquois Zone 2 to a little more than $4 at the Algonquincitygate. Monday’s continued softness resulted from regionalweather getting milder over the weekend, a marketer said. However,he sees a good chance of prices starting to level out or possiblyrebounding mildly due to expectations of another winter storm thatcould reach the Northeast by midweek.

A weekend ice storm that cut power to thousands of homes innorthern Georgia and parts of the Carolinas provided no pricepick-me-up for Sonat and Transco, the pipes that serve the area.Instead, quotes for both pipes were off a few cents. A modest riseby the screen also failed to translate into higher Gulf Coastnumbers.

However, temperatures were dropping and gas load was rising fromlast week in the Midwest. That resulted in price hikes of up to anickel or more at the Chicago and Michigan citygates and suchnear-market-area points as Ventura and NGPL Iowa-Illinois Line.

Some of the West’s softness may have been influenced byPG&E’s projecting above-target linepack (without issuing anOFO) early Monday morning, a marketer said. However, the projectionwas “normalized” later, she added, speculating that the utilityprobably had backed off on storage withdrawals for core customers.

NOVA reported its system was packing and changed imbalancetolerances to 0/-20%, helping send intra-Alberta and Sumas pricesdown by more than a dime.

A trader who reported doing an NGPL-Midcontinent deal forFebruary at $2.42 was hearing general Midcontinent basis of minus10.5-10 Monday.

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