The big rallies that had developed late in Friday’s trading for the weekend provided a solid base for spectacular price increases Monday. Gains of about 30 cents or more were common in the East, while the West, where winter storm watches were posted for parts of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, registered upticks that exceeded 40 cents in most cases.

There’s really nothing new in the way of market influences, said a Midcontinent/Midwest trader. Monday’s sharp spikes actually were relative to the fact that most Friday deals got done at lower levels before late quotes began following the screen upward in response to the NOAA affirming forecasts of a colder than normal winter, he said. Panhandle Eastern and ANR-Southwest had traded mostly in the $2.10s Friday before shooting up into the mid $2.30s towards deadline, he noted. “The lesser volumes done late didn’t raise averages that much Friday,” so the growth in prices yesterday psychologically may have seemed bigger than it really was, the trader added.

Weather had only a modest immediate role in the fresh round of bullishness, according to one marketer, as it’s currently moderate in the Midwest. However, he expects weather to help sustain prices for a while as the season’s first major winter storm was beginning to move into the Pacific Northwest Monday and was due to hit the Upper Plains today. From there, it’s expected to spread eastward and southward, bringing an early touch of winter to the Midwest and some of the Midcontinent.

Still, a utility buyer found it difficult to understand why Northeast prices were up nearly 30 cents “when the weather is beautiful. Sure, we’ve got those two bullish winter forecasts from last week, but with storage as near-full as it is, I don’t know why anyone would be worried enough about the winter to drive prices this high.”

The PG&E citygate saw the day’s largest advance of about 60 cents after the utility discontinued a high-linepack OFO after Saturday. The end of PG&E’s OFO, and the lack of concern Monday over a potential SoCalGas OFO (traders had feared one Friday but it never materialized, a western trader said), was also being felt in the Rockies and San Juan Basin pipes that feed gas into California. Those pipes were up between 40 and 50 cents.

Florida Gas Transmission completed a pipe replacement project upstream of Station 3 in South Texas (see Daily GPI, Sept. 12) ahead of schedule, allowing MOPS deliveries into FGT in Refugio County to resume Monday. The FGT work had been expected to keep MOPS-Refugio volumes scheduled to zero through the end of the month.

©Copyright 2001 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.