Despite Tuesday’s overall price losses, the rising trend astrading progressed carried over into Wednesday and resulted inmoderate to strong rebounds. Increases mostly were in the range of5-10 cents and tended to cancel out the Tuesday declines.

The first return to $3 pricing since the winter heating seasonoccurred in an unlikely market: not Northeast citygates as onemight expect but rather in the Rockies, which has been experiencingsnow this week. In a super-volatile range that approached a dollar,Denver-Julesburg Basin quotes went as high as $3.25. In addition tothe cold, Public Service Co. of Colorado’s implementation of anOperational Flow Order caused the big run-up, sources said. PSCOonly enacted the OFO for one day, but unless shippers step up theirvolumes it could last longer, a producer said. He thought a lot ofpeople were drafting the pipe because prices are so relativelyhigh, and the fixed-price spreads between the Rockies and theMidcontinent aren’t supporting the cost of transportation.

Although the $3-plus DJ reports came from several sources, amarketer who did DJ deals in the high $2.20s was dubious. Yes,there was considerable run-up from the OFO but it only lasted ashort time before falling back, he said. His company would havebeen tickled pink to sell anybody DJ gas for only $2.40, themarketer added.

Midcontinent pipes were up almost a dime to the $2.40 area buttrailing off in late deals, one source said. He was gettingsame-day calls for gas because of cool weather, “and that [same-daycalls] doesn’t often happen in April.” He expects a fair amount ofheating load this weekend as Oklahoma temperatures in the 30s and40s are forecast.

A marketer reported doing a baseload Malin-to-PG&E Citygatespread deal at 40 cents, “which means we bought Malin and sold thecitygate.” That shows willingness on the part of the market to owncitygate-delivered gas for the rest of April, he said, which couldbe due to PG&E’s recent OFOs. Another trader said he heardthere might be a group planning to file a protest with theCalifornia PUC “about the PG&E overtake and then undertake[OFO] thing. It was pretty ridiculous.”

A trader expects Sumas prices to come off quite as bit as thePacific Northwest warms up and also because BC Gas had beeninjecting a “bunch” of gas into storage but now its field is downfor routine testing, so extra supply should be coming available.

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