It was a mostly softer swing market Monday, but with very littleconsistency in price movement. New quotes ranged from down around20 cents at Northeast citygates, which tended to see last week’sbiggest increases, to 2-5 cents higher in California, where alow-inventory OFO by PG&E helped boost demand. Other points inbetween were flat to down more than a nickel, with most of thedrops being in the vicinity of a nickel.

A lower screen combined with cold weather that wasn’t quite assevere as expected to produce the moderate declines at most points,sources said. Despite the general softness, swing numbers startednear their lows and wound up near their highs, a Gulf Coastmarketer said.

A western trader also reported rising prices for California,saying PG&E’s OFO had “jazzed up the market” there after it wasissued. The region’s two major remaining nuclear outages wereslower than expected in winding up, he said, citing reports thatthe Washington Nuclear Project was at 37% power Monday andcontinuing to ramp up, while a Diablo Canyon nuclear unit had noteven been restarted yet.

Seeing the futures screen falling, buyers were holding off onNovember bidweek purchases Monday, a producer said. “The [weather]forecasts we’re hearing for November make me hesitant to go intothe month with much length,” he added. “Unless there’s a real blastof winter, we’re looking for [November] swing to trade down fromindexes.”

Physical basis quotes got a little tighter Monday due to thescreen drop, several sources agreed. A marketer said it appearedthat weaker futures also was bringing down fixed prices. He didSumas deals for November Friday at $2.98-3.00, but Monday’spackages were on either side of $2.95. A Calgary trader reported anintra-Alberta baseload trade at C$3.88, about C2 cents aboveMonday’s mid C$2.80s swing deals.

A marketer and producer agreed on plus 14 basis for ElPaso-Permian. Other basis reports Monday included Waha at minus10.5, El Paso-San Juan at minus 14, Southern California border atplus 7, Columbia Gulf-onshore at minus 2.25, TGT Zone SL at minus1.5, and Transco Station 65 at plus 1.

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