With Canada already around freezing and sending those semi-arctic conditions south of the border, traders braced for a week of cold with price upticks Monday that were fairly moderate, around a dime or less in a majority of instances. But the Rockies market continued its torrid pace from last week with further spikes, and was joined in double-digit gains by San Juan Basin, Pacific Northwest and Western Canada points and some Northeast citygates.

There was some screen support, with November natural gas eventually rising nearly 15 cents in its penultimate day of trading and the crude oil and heating oil contracts seeing small gains. But weather was the real story for cash gas, sources said. Some of the coldest temperatures of the young heating season so far are rolling into the Midwest and Northeast and will be penetrating even into the currently mild South before the weekend, according to The Weather Channel. And although winter weather in the Rockies was largely confined to the region’s upper reaches Monday, a cold front from Canada will be pushing the frigid conditions into the rest of the intermountain West Tuesday, the forecasting service said.

With heating load expected to do little but increase as the week wears on, a marketer said it’s difficult to perceive any potential price retreats in the near-term outlook. The West may start softening again at the end of this week or early next week as the Climate Prediction Center’s eight- to 14-day outlook Monday had normal temperatures returning to the western half of the U.S., but below normal readings were expected to continue in the eastern half.

Northern Natural-demarc, which was most affected Monday by severe weather in the Upper Plains, was helping to keep prices rising in the rest of the Midcontinent and even extending into the Southwest basins, a marketer said. She noted that El Paso-Permian was especially strong, trading within a couple of cents of Waha; “usually there’s more of a spread there.” Intrastate Texas loads were down a little bit, but not enough to say the Permian strength was coming mostly from the western end of the pipe, she added.

A couple of Florida utility buyers said it had warmed up a little again in the state, so they weren’t surprised to see Florida Gas Transmission reinstate an Overage Alert Day notice Monday (see Transportation Notes). “But it was nice to have it [OAD] lifted for the weekend; that relieved us of a little hassle,” one said. Florida citygates were reported in the high $4.40s, well below deliveries into the Northeast.

November bidweek business picked up only slightly following the weekend. Western sources quoted fixed prices for next month around $3.90 for El Paso-Permian and in the mid $3.80s for Transwestern-Permian. Led by the screen gain, Waha moved from the low $3.90s in the morning up to the mid $3.90s in the afternoon, one said. A producer said she had done no bidweek deals yet, but heard the PG&E citygate was trading at index plus a penny.

A marketer characterized business as “the same old same old: Very few players, low liquidity, and people talking about how they’re going to survive the current troubles” in energy trading.

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