As expected, the cash market was moderately softer for nearly all points Tuesday. The lack of weather-related load in most regions, declines in the major energy futures contracts and the heavy burden of burgeoning storage inventories left prices unable to sustain what one trader had deemed a largely “artificial” rally Monday.

There were two significant variations from overall declines ranging from about a nickel to 20 cents. Sumas registered a small gain as a winter storm bore down on the Pacific Northwest and the Kemmerer (WY) Station bottleneck on Northwest Pipeline prevented more domestic supplies from satisfying the resulting load. Meanwhile, Tuesday’s one-day outage of about 360 MMcf/d at the Opal Hub was no longer a factor, causing plunges of about 40 cents or more on Rockies pipes.

There was general agreement that the market is making a fairly easy transition to trading in the absence of former titan Enron and its once-dominant EnronOnline trading platform. “It’s really not difficult,” a Midcontinent marketer commented. “There’s been some loss of liquidity, but otherwise things have been smooth. People have been turning more to the other electronic platforms [ICE, DynegyDirect and Altrade], and doing more one-on-one phone talking” to aid their price discovery.

Several sources said they were not aware of any Enron physical gas trading activity, but also said they were in the dark because of no direct contact with the Enron trading floor recently. A producer reported looking at EOL a couple of times Tuesday and finding only out-month Nymex-related products being offered and no physical gas postings. He also said EOL was carrying a new message to the effect that no more transactions were being done over the Internet; instead one must call an Enron trader directly on the phone to make a deal.

Most traders saw Tuesday as setting a pattern of mild softness that will continue until December finally coughs up a sustained period of genuinely cold weather. After all, said one, that’s the norm for the month in most years, although he added, “This may not be most years, though.” The Midwest is due for a little winter blast over the next two or three days, but it’s doubtful that will turn prices around even temporarily when so many utilities and end-users are itching for an excuse to dig into their bountiful storage inventories, a marketer said.

Tuesday’s trend was downward toward the end of trading in virtually all markets. Chicago citygates barely broke below the $2 level near deadline in one deal quoted at $1.9975. However, the trader reporting it said some citygate strength was indicated by swing swaps for Chicago trading at $2.20-25 for the balance of the month.

A Gulf Coast source noted that high-linepack OFOs or critical system balancing alerts remain in effect for all pipes heading to the Northeast market area.

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