Except for losses getting a little larger and extending to as much as 20 cents or so, Monday’s swing market was almost a carbon copy of that on Friday — mostly moderate declines with a smidgen of firmness at a few points.

The Midwest and Rockies were entering a moderating trend but still feeling sub-freezing lows Monday, while the lower Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are in the interim stage between shots of cold both over the weekend and due again at midweek. Temperatures in New England are cold enough to have generated Monday’s few instances of flat to mildly higher prices.

A Midwest utility buyer reported selling several Northern Natural-demarc packages in the $4.70s “because we’ve been long for the last few days,” and other people wanted the gas more than he did. Area highs would be in the 30s for another couple of days, then jump to around 50 by Friday, he said. “My son was outside in his T-shirt Sunday afternoon, showing that even the 30s can seem warm after you’ve been freezing for a long time,” the buyer noted.

A Northeast marketer said the weather was “pretty nice” in his city Monday, but they were due for another bout of cold around Wednesday-Thursday, “then I’m hearing 50s for the weekend.” He reflected overall sentiment in saying the market Monday was “generally dead,” adding that traders seemed slow to get back into a working mood after the weekend. He saw some Texas Eastern M-3 trading at physical basis of plus 66-68 cents Monday, but said not much was going on for bidweek yet. “We’ll probably get more active Tuesday,” he said.

A Florida utility buyer said the state was getting warmer, but a “good chance of rain in the next couple of days” should keep any cooling load to a minimum. The buyer said she was just starting to put out March feelers Monday afternoon and hadn’t heard any price numbers being offered.

A utility buyer in the Midwest also had “nothing yet” to report for March business, but said it’s a safe bet to look for falling indexes because the February screen settled at $5.775 and he didn’t see March futures making any huge rebounds from their current position in the low $5.10s. He perceived Northern Natural basis at demarc and Ventura as getting slightly weaker Monday. However, another Midwest trader said Chicago citygate basis tended to firm a bit to plus 3.5-4 cents. Chicago is valued at index minus 1-0.5 cent in the early going, he said, but in general “March numbers are all over the board at this point.”

Lehman Brothers analyst Thomas Driscoll expects EIA to report a storage withdrawal of 105 Bcf for the week ending Feb. 20, which compares with a year-ago pull of 154 Bcf. “If our withdrawal estimate is correct, the storage surplus versus a year ago will increase from 263 Bcf to 312 Bcf and the storage variance versus five-year averages would rise from a 95 Bcf deficit to a 104 Bcf deficit,” Driscoll added.

Kyle Cooper, a Citigroup analyst, lowered his final storage report estimation to a draw of 146-156 Bcf after pegging his initial estimation in the 150s Bcf Friday.

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