The cash market got little support from the return of industrial load following the weekend. Instead, with a much weaker screen in Nymex’s abbreviated session Monday, and with few areas experiencing bullish weather, most points softened by up to a dime or so.

The largest price drops were concentrated in the Northeast, where cool, autumn-like temperatures continue to dominate the weather picture. Monday’s points registering modest gains were mostly in California and the Rockies/Pacific Northwest. Hotter weather has returned in the Golden State and in east-of-California markets in the desert Southwest, sources said. PG&E citygates, and to a lesser extent Malin, found some support in the PG&E utility projecting that its linepack would fall substantially below minimum target levels towards midweek.

Intra-Alberta numbers managed to advance about C10 cents or more, running contrary to the provincial market’s tendency to follow the screen’s lead, a marketer said.

The trading atmosphere is “still not normal, but a little closer than it was last week” following the terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon, an aggregator said. The return of open-outcry futures trading helped, even if it was on a restricted basis, he said. However, another source thought the market “was not a whole lot different” even with Nymex pit activity resuming, because trading volumes remained on the light side compared to what used to be “normal.”

An electric utility in the South had no new prices to report, saying that even with the thermometer rising a bit, “we’re buying next-day power from others to the extent that it’s cheaper than our own generation.” Any gas peaking units that were running were easily covered by term and/or September baseload gas, the fuel buyer said.

A couple of sources reported Chicago deals mostly in the low $2.30s, but agreed that prices ran up to $2.40-41 late as one or two people got caught in short supply positions. However, very little gas was traded at the upper levels, the sources said.

A lot of deals are still being rolled over from day to day, according to a marketer. During last Tuesday’s crisis-shortened market and again on Wednesday, “a lot of our trading counterparties were just setting a volume and agreeing to establish the price later,” he said. “Nobody haggled much over a penny or two.” The regular price-setting process began to return Thursday, the marketer said.

Hurricane Gabrielle, which never was more than a minimal factor in gas trading last week, was off the market’s radar scope entirely Monday, as it moved toward the east-northeast away from Bermuda.

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