The May aftermarket began at price levels considerably below first-of-month indexes in nearly all cases, and several traders advised against anyone holding their breath while awaiting an upturn of any significance. They cited a screen plunge Monday that was about twice as large as any of last week’s single-day drops, a general near-term weather outlook that remains on the benign side, and expectations of another big storage injection report (Lehman Brothers is projecting 70 Bcf).

There could be isolated, relatively small rallies here and there over the next couple of weeks, a marketer said, but overall the market is likely to stay fairly weak for a while. However, all bets are off from about mid-May onward, he and others agreed. About that time the normal summer buildup of cooling load should begin the classic competition for gas molecules with storage interests that has been anticipated since last winter.

The PG&E citygate and Cal border-PG&E were the rare points exceeding index in Monday’s swing business. One major reason was the utility taking its 1,100 MW Diablo Canyon 2 nuclear unit down over the weekend for at least 35 days of refueling. The downtime previously had been set to begin next weekend but was moved up so the unit could return to service before summer demand began peaking, according to one report. In addition, PG&E lost a compressor at Burney Station to mechanical problems, causing a restriction of Redwood Path capacity to 1,796 MMcf/d, about 94% of its maximum. The compressor could be back online as early as last night unless the problem is worse than it first appeared, said a PG&E scheduler.

Otherwise, there were precious few signs of price strength. Several pipelines are still grappling with excessive linepack, with Florida Gas Transmission reiterating that it may be forced to join Tennessee in issuing an OFO to resolve such a problem. NOVA revised its imbalance tolerance range to 0/-20% Sunday morning, in essence inviting shippers to take as much linepack as they could handle.

A Chicago trader said the Peoples LDC was not allowing any volume adjustments for May 1, “so basically you’re stuck with what you nominated Friday. It doesn’t seem fair, but I understand the reason because they’re trying to cope with excess gas.”

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