Northeast citygates continued to scale new price heightsWednesday as the region braced for another onslaught of what isturning out to be the most severe winter storm of the currentseason by far. Transportation-constrained Transco Zone 6-NYC againtopped the price list with quotes that ran as high as $11, and acouple of sources confirmed that the point had already traded forFriday flow at $13.50. Other citygates in the region were allaveraging more than $5 Wednesday.

The Northeast situation still isn’t translating into similarresults in other markets, even with the Midwest at least as cold asthe Northeast and near-freezing temperatures extending as far southas the Carolinas on the East Coast. However, Gulf Coast andMidcontinent/Midwest quotes did manage to tack on another nickel orso to their averages in most cases.

Utilities were significant buyers at the Chicago citygate, onetrader said. NIPSCO was a buyer of ANR-specific supplies and as aresult prices there were driven 2-3 cents above other Chicago-areadeliveries, he added. But even with citygates up to the $2.50 area,one Chicago buyer continues to abstain from pulling storage infavor of buying new gas, saying current physical prices are stilllower than the storage WACOG.

The Rockies and California remained the weakest markets at flatto slightly higher largely because of a high-linepack OFO issued byPG&E. The OFO even caused PG&E citygates to drop a coupleof cents. However, Permian Basin gas avoided the West’s generalweakness because of its ability to flow to higher-demandMidcontinent/Midwest markets. Permian numbers also may have gottena boost from the intrastate Texas market, where it was warm enoughfor a wee bit of air conditioning load, one trader suggested.

Intra-Alberta prices also tended to be stronger than most of theWest, with a few quotes topping C$3 as the province experiencedcold similar to that in the northern U.S. Field receipts droppingto 12.1 Bcf/d compound the cold problem, a Calgary trader said.”Target linepack [for NOVA] is 13.9 Bcf, and right now we aredrafting at 13.5 Bcf.”

Wellhead freeze-offs in northern British Columbia are keepingsupplies tight on Westcoast and supporting Station 2 prices at justover C$3, a marketer said. In turn, that is helping to keep Sumasnumbers almost a dime above domestic gas into Northwest, he said.

Sources considered the AGA storage withdrawal figure of 110 Bcfneutral to slightly bearish. But one suspected it might have beeninaccurate on the low side, saying, “It seemed like last week’sweather was colder than that.”

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