Cash prices were mostly higher Monday, but there was littleconsistency from market to market. Western points mostly rangedfrom flat to down a nickel, while Northeast citygates andAppalachian pipes jumped by a nickel or more as snowy conditionsstill lingered in some areas. One forecasting service said the fiveinches of snow dumped in the New York City area over the weekendwas 10 times what it had received all winter.

However, cold weather wasn’t responsible for most of Monday’supticks, sources said. Rather it was “a purely technical Nymexmove” as the screen ran up into the low $2.40s early on and didn’tretreat until it was too late for cash trading to react, a marketersaid. Another source said based purely on fundamental factors, hewould have expected Gulf Coast prices to soften Monday. He alsothought a little extra boost may have come from people who wereundernominated for Sunday and Monday, “shorting the pipes” andcausing them to buy makeup gas.

Increases averaging about a nickel in Louisiana were led byTransco Station 65, which soared to the mid $2.30s. Transco, HenryHub and ANR Southeast were the “hot” points Monday, a producersaid.

A slippage in PG&E citygates of about a nickel, combinedwith a penny rise in Southern California border quotes, caused thetwo indexes to converge to essential parity again, which is howthey began March.

A maintenance outage of Kern River at Opal this week is cuttingall interruptible shipments but having no effect on prices, said asource who did several Opal deals flat in the mid $1.90s. Heexpects Rockies numbers to start softening because of warmertemperatures expected in Denver and Salt Lake City this week.

The negative pressure on gas prices from fuel oil competitionwas eased at least temporarily after several member nations of OPECreached an oil export-cutting agreement over the weekend. Thatcaused crude futures to jump nearly $2 into the $16-17 rangeMonday.

Midcontinent basis was getting just a tad wider due to therecent screen strength, said a trader who pegged Panhandle Easternat minus 12. A marketer said he was hearing South Texas pipes ingeneral at minus 9, Houston Ship Channel at minus 2.5 and Waha atminus 12-14.

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