In what a few sources described as some of the quietest tradingthey had seen in quite a while, cash quotes fell anywhere from 2cents to a dime or so at Eastern points Monday. In contrast,numbers were generally flat to slightly higher for the Rockies,Southwest basins, California and intra-Alberta.

The West might have gotten a bit of market support fromsnowstorms in the Dakotas and Wyoming, but those states are toosparsely populated to carry much weight on the gas demand scale.

Sources were close to unanimous in expecting more price downsidethis week due to continuing lack of fundamental support. One wasincredulous about the separation between cash and the futuresscreen. Even with a small screen drop Monday, he pointed out, theNovember contract was still about 30 cents higher than currentHenry Hub cash levels.

“Everyone I talk to is long on gas because they were unsure oftheir supply during bidweek, so they took the safe route, which wasto hold off on some sales,” a marketer told Daily GPI. These peoplewere patting themselves on the back for the first couple of daysthis month, “but now it looks like we will see some below-indexpricing.” Furthermore, the weather is pretty benign across thecountry right now, the marketer said. “Sure, there is some electricgeneration load here in Texas and a bit of heating demand in theNorth, but nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year.”

A lot of Northeast market-area utilities were selling gasthemselves Monday just to get rid of their surplus, a largeaggregator noted. That indicates they have little if any storagespace left and they can’t burn all the gas for which they’vecontracted, he said.

One trader thought Monday’s trading lightness was partly aresult of people returning from a weekend following one of the morestressful bidweeks due to Hurricane Georges. He agrees with theoverall bearish market outlook, but said it could be affected byWednesday’s AGA storage report. His company is expecting a range of50-70 Bcf in injections.

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