“It figures, we got some winter weather after the winter wasover.” That was a Northeast gas buyer’s lament after a weekendblast of snow and cold sent regional citygates as high as the$3.60s (Transco Zone 6-NYC) Monday and had some Gulf Coast pointsedging over $3.

It was a bull market overall for cash prices, but outside ofdouble-digit gains in the Northeast the increases were fairly smallat a nickel or less. The Southwest basins and Rockies were littlemore than flat, as were scattered points in the Gulf Coast andMidcontinent.

The screen added a wee bit of extra boost by moving slightlyhigher during the morning, although it eventually settled back tono change, sources said. But weather was definitely the chief causeof Monday’s upticks, they added.

The weekend storm that was spread from the Midwest through theNortheast was starting to move out into the Atlantic Monday, but anew system was expected soon in the Great Lakes/Ohio Valley region.

A lot of people must have missed the forecast last Friday, saida Houston-based marketer, because undernominations for Sunday andMonday prompted substantial increases in Tuesday flows. That wasalso evidenced by a supplier’s report of many calls for intradaygas; he made an intraday sale in Transco’s Zone 6-NYC pool at$3.65, commanding more than a dime’s premium over next-day flow.

It finally stopped snowing in Chicago, a citygate trader said,but the weather is expected to remain cold this week withtemperatures seven degrees below normal for this time of year.NI-Gas deliveries ran up to $3.07-08 Monday, but the “real story”was Peoples, which traded as high as $3.12, he said.

Producers must be saying, “Whoopee, we’ve got three-buck gas inthe Gulf Coast during April,” commented a buyer. But as anothertrader noted, “You know those producers. They’ll think $4 gas isthe next stop.”

Western numbers tended to see most of the smallest gains exceptfor a rise of nearly a dime at the PG&E citygate, and that waslargely because the citygate was one of the rare points registeringa decline of more than a penny Friday and primarily was regaininglost ground. Despite trader concerns, no weekend OFOs were issuedby the California utilities.

“We weren’t seeing any load changes in California,” a marketertold Daily GPI. There was a general feeling among western tradersthat “prices shouldn’t be this high,” as one said. And a PacificNorthwest source chimed in, “This is a pretty overdone market inlight of our warm temperatures.”

The support that gas prices have been getting from high crudeoil prices this year is sinking fast. The crude futures contractfor May shed more than a dollar Monday to wind up under $24/bbl.Heating oil futures also took a substantial drop.

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