The market emerged from a three-day weekend with negative influences still dominant throughout the East and no hint of a rally in sight. Declines tended to range from a nickel to about a dime at eastern points, with those on either side of a dime most prevalent. Larger drops of up to about 20 cents were recorded at unseasonably mild Northeast citygates and downright balmy Florida citygates.

Much of the current weather load is concentrated from the upper West Coast through the Rockies and into the Upper Plains. The result was mostly flat to slightly higher numbers at western points. But noting the natural gas screen’s fall of 13 cents, even with some strength being displayed in the neighboring crude oil and heating oil pits, a marketer said he expects the West to join the overall market in further softness today.

“It’s relatively warm here and prices are just slowly dying,” said an East Coast buyer. He noted that Transco Zone 6-NYC numbers started in the high $2.50s, but steadily trailed off to the mid $2.40s. Similar downturns were reported for Gulf Coast prices in later deals.

An eastern LDC buyer sees almost no chance for a turnaround this week. In addition to futures weakness that shows little sign of slacking, last week’s forecasts of above normal temperatures east of the Rockies are being borne out, she said. And the National Weather Service extended the bearish outlook Tuesday with a new prediction of warmer than normal thermometer readings lasting through Feb. 1 in the eastern half of the U.S.

Storage withdrawals are proceeding at a pretty fast clip in the West, a regional trader said. Northwest reported about 376,000 dekatherms coming out of Jackson Prairie for Monday’s gas day, and PG&E was expecting a full 1 Bcf to be withdrawn Tuesday. He reported a PG&E citygate deal was done for February at $2.15 Tuesday, which wasn’t far below the day’s swing average and reflected good early convergence.

A marketer quoting a Kingsgate purchase in the high $2.00s and the PG&E citygate averaging in the low $2.20s said the “gate-to-gate” spread of less than 15 cents didn’t cover variable transportation costs, “but sometimes you have to move it anyway to keep the customer satisfied.”

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