Cash prices across the board followed through on Monday’s Nymexrise by gaining a dime (or more in some cases) yesterday, andexcept for the Alberta market, nobody had any plausible fundamentalreason to explain the changes. Ranges continued to tighten fromlast Friday’s and Monday’s wide-open spaces, a marketer said. Hethinks the market will continue to be range-bound “until we getsome cooling load.” Supply and demand are currently well balancedand storage inventories are far ahead of last year’s, so he doesn’texpect the gas market to heat up until the weather does, “and thatmay not happen until June [futures] is off the board.”

Fires in Alberta Monday afternoon and evening caused fieldreceipts to weigh in at 11.7 Bcf, which is about 800 MMcf/d off themarket, one source told Daily GPI. The resultant reduction of NOVAlinepack caused some price panic Tuesday morning in intra-Albertatrading, he said, pushing Aeco C prices as high as C$2.20 at onepoint, more than C25 cents up from Monday. The market had calmeddown by the afternoon, though, with the bid-ask spread subsiding toeither side of C$2.05.

The tightening of Canadian supplies prompted a seller to offerSumas at $1.85, as opposed to other quotes in the high $1.50s,according to a trader. He doesn’t think that deal got done, but hehad to credit the supplier’s boldness. “They were trying tocapitalize on market hype based on the fires in Alberta,” he said.

Some fairly good air conditioning load has been developing inTexas, said a marketer reporting Waha in the low $2.10s and Katy inthe high $2.10s. Another source agreed, saying Houston Ship Channelnumbers were up more than a dime to around $2.20 because of highhumidity in Southeast Texas.

For some reason San Juan Basin prices were softening Monday intrading for Tuesday flow when El Paso’s Bondad Station would betotally shut down. But they then rose more than a dime into the$1.90s Tuesday even thought Bondad curtailments would be muchsmaller Wednesday, a producer noted. “Oh well, nothing ever seemsto make much sense in gas markets anyway.”

The effects of GasMart/Power in New Orleans were alreadystarting to show up Tuesday in the form of less market liquidity.Not only were a lot of traders heading that way during theafternoon, but also they often left behind swing deals done throughnext Monday. “I expect it to be very quiet the rest of the week,”said a Houston marketer.

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