Big rebounds in the vicinity of a dollar at San Juan/Rockies points and moderate declines in the Northeast were the primary diversions Monday from overall flatness in the rest of the cash market, in which most points were less than a nickel up or down from unchanged.

Quotes for the Rockies and San Juan Basin continued the trend they started last week of seeing big daily movements while the rest of the West essentially marked time on prices. Mild weather for the weekend had left a lot of production-area gas searching for a home, and some that might have gone into storage missed out as a result, one western trader said. But a front moving eastward through the Rockies Monday leaving chillier temperatures and even some snow in its wake, plus the return of industrial demand after the weekend lull, apparently was enough to bring Rockies/San Juan pricing back out of the depths to which they sunk Friday, he said.

Sumas had averaged more than $1.80 above the domestic product on Northwest Friday; their spread had shrunk to about 70 cents Monday.

Strength on the screen, which wavered between 15 and 20 cents higher during the morning before realizing a final daily gain of 14.1 cents, was chiefly responsible for late cash gains of a dime or so, a Gulf Coast marketer said. He and a marketer who trades the Northeast agreed that people getting antsy about the prospect of another withdrawal report from the EIA Thursday, representing new growth in the year-on-year storage deficit, spurred most of the relative firmness in both futures and cash.

Although the Northeast was still fairly cold Monday, citygates fell on the forecasts of a warm-up that could push highs into the 70s Tuesday and Wednesday, the regional marketer said. However, a bit of semi-winter is expected to return late this week. The cash market was considerably quieter than the one at Nymex, he said, adding that “all in all, it’s a buyer’s market” in the Northeast now that a taste of spring is moving in.

The Gulf Coast source had another reason for not being surprised at the reluctance of prices to fall much while most markets are warming up: the warm-ups are on the verge of generating some serious cooling load in the near future, he said. “I know we’ve been running air conditioners around Houston recently, even if they’re not cycling on every 15 minutes or so like they will be towards mid-summer.”

According to analyst Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers, “Colder than normal weather last week leads us to estimate a withdrawal of 30 Bcf” for the week ended April 11. “This would leave storage inventory levels at 641 Bcf, 865 Bcf lower than last year and 586 Bcf lower than the five-year average.”

Citigroup’s Kyle Cooper revised his storage report estimation Monday to a draw of 33-43 Bcf, slightly up from his 30-40 Bcf range Friday.

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