Triple-digit losses at Northeast citygates were the most spectacular in a day of general price plunges. Most non-Northeast points fell by anywhere from about 20 cents to 60 cents or so. Only Rockies/San Juan quotes saw flat to small declines.

Buyers welcomed the overall softness as something of a return to near-normalcy by a market that had been skewed somewhat by a deep freeze over much of the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada for the past two weeks. As an East Coast utility trader put it, “Weather demand is abating and cash is getting back to more reasonable spreads with Nymex.”

“Thaw-out time is still another day or two away for us, but prices are already diving,” noted a Northeast utility buyer. He expected continued softening Wednesday, but thought that the psychology of the drilling rig count being so far down combined with predictions of cold weather returning in early February could bring a cash rally towards the end of the week. The buyer is looking for a screen settlement around $5.30 Wednesday.

Another utility buyer in the Northeast said prices were coming “way off” in anticipation of moderating temperatures. New York City-area deliveries also moved back above non-NYC numbers in Transco’s Zone 6 pool, he observed. “What happened Monday [when non-NYC registered at an unusual premium to NYC] was a rare phenomenon that is probably due to the lack of firm transport” held by utilities in the further upstream Mid-Atlantic region, he said.

The buyer continued, “We were buyers and sellers in both the production area and the market zones Tuesday depending on the pipe. On Texas Eastern and Tennessee it mostly made sense to sell gas in the production area and buy it back in the market zone. However, on Transco the opposite was true. Transco is nearly always capacity-short, so it is usually economically advantageous to use your transport and that was certainly the case [Tuesday].”

“We never saw the big price strength in the Rockies that other markets did, so that’s probably why our price declines were much smaller today [Tuesday]” than elsewhere, commented a marketer. Her CIG average in the low $3.10s was only a couple of pennies off from Monday.

Production-area quotes came off most of the day, but then rebounded at the very end, a Gulf Coast producer said. “Some buyers may have been waiting in the wings to see whether the EIA is due to come out with another monster [storage withdrawal report Thursday],” he went on. “My guys are predicting the estimated withdrawal will be even larger than last week’s at 230-260 Bcf. And the following week should be a big one, too. That means if we keep this pace up, we will see 700 Bcf withdrawn in three weeks. And why not? Most everyone is comfortable that they can see the end of winter from here. We should have plenty enough [storage] to get though the remainder.”

Bidweek numbers were falling quite a bit, according to one trader. Although not doing the deals herself, she reported seeing CIG trade Monday for February at $3.24 on an online platform, but said the same pipe was at $3.09 Tuesday.

An eastern marketer concurred about the downward trend in February numbers. Chicago was in the $5.35-40 range Tuesday after having traded in the $5.50s a day earlier, he said. Panhandle Eastern averaged about $4.95 in a range from the low to high $4.90s, the marketer added. He hadn’t seen any fixed-price numbers yet for NGPL Midcontinent, but said it appeared to be running about 2 cents less than Panhandle.

A utility buyer in the South reported making no headway on initiating bidweek deals. “People seem to want to get going on February business, but they keep hanging back anyway,” she said. “I haven’t been able to get anyone to quote me a fixed-price offer.”

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