A number of traders were experiencing early cases of the”Summertime Blues” Monday due to what they perceived as a verylackluster market. “It will be easy to report the prices todaybecause they’ve hardly budged” from Friday, a Gulf Coast marketertold Daily GPI. Another source quoting flat to slightly lowerChicago citygates in the mid $2.00s noted he was “just sitting hereyawning.”

Almost every point ranged from flat to 2-3 cents lower. Cash wasfollowing the screen down again, said a producer, who sold intoTennessee’s 500 and 800 legs at identical $1.93 prices and whoseColumbia Gulf-onshore deals went from a flat $1.97 down to $1.94.The Northeast market area is “pretty well saturated” with gas instorage, she said.

At least there was a “little more” volatility Monday than therehad been last week, according to a Gulf Coast trader. That made iteasier to turn small profits by getting into and out of the marketquickly, he said. There still seems to be a “lot of shorts” in thismarket, he added.

A big aggregator did several early El Paso-Permian deals down1-2 cents from Friday’s $1.66 average. However, when he found itnecessary to buy a small package late the price had “ratcheted upto $1.70 for some reason.” He thought a supply squeeze at the endcaused the run-up.

Although Malin quotes fell a couple of cents, PG&E citygatessaw the day’s biggest increase of over a nickel into the low$1.90s. Waha, which is starting to experience a less-intenserevival of last week’s Texas air conditioning market, was also oneof the rare points to eke out a small gain.

Surveying what he called “the paper market,” a marketer said itlooks like summer-to-winter spreads on Rockies pipes are stayingartificially wide. He said he could buy Rockies gas in the high$1.40s for the July-August period and resell it in theDecember-January market in the high $2.20s for a spread of about 80cents. But he’s projecting a more normal spread of about 36 centsfor the same periodes in 1999-2000.

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