With a blatant clue like the screen’s Monday drop of just over15 cents, which no cash point came close to matching that day, nogas traders had to switch occupations to rocket scientist topredict swing prices would be softening further Tuesday. Except foressential flatness in the Rockies and at Canada’s intra-Alberta andSumas points, most of Tuesday’s declines were within the range of4-9 cents.

Canadian prices remained strong because of low linepack on NOVA,which changed its daily imbalance tolerance from the normal+10%/-10% to +18%/-2%, according to a marketer. He was tradingintra-Alberta swing gas in the high C$2.70s but said a baseloaddeal was discounted to C$2.70.

For the third trading day in a row, modest late rebounds werereported as supply tightness developed, especially in the Rockiesand Southwest basins. Both the Blanco and Bondad pools in San JuanBasin were at near-parity with Permian prices in the $2.00s.Sources explained the relative San Juan strength as due to heavyCalifornia demand and an outage of the Conoco plant at Blanco, NM,taking about 150 MMcf/d off the market. However, the Conoco plantis expected to be back in service Thursday, a marketer said.

A producer and a marketer apparently were seeing differentweather predictions. Lack of substantial cold weather continues toweigh on the cash market, the marketer said. And, he added, “thesix-to-10-day forecast doesn’t give bulls much to look forward toalmost through the end of the month.” But although the producerdoesn’t expect cash to move back up much, he also doesn’t see themdropping much further from current levels. According to his weathercrystal ball, Northern market areas look to be pretty cold laterthis week and during Thanksgiving week.

A Gulf Coast producer reported December basis of plus 2 forTransco Station 65 and minus 1.75 for TGT Zone SL. A marketerpegged the Southern California border at plus 17. PG&Ecitygates have been trading recently at SoCal border plus 17-21, hesaid, but the bid-ask range for December is at plus 25-30. That’sbecause available Baja path capacity is being cut and FT is fullyutilized, the marketer added. The citygate now is more closelyapproximating the total of Malin plus Redwood path transport, hesaid. One source did a fixed-price December deal intoNGPL-Midcontinent at $2.25.

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