With few bastions of relatively mild temperatures left outside the Florida peninsula, South Texas and the southern reaches of Arizona and California, all points were united Tuesday in realizing moderate to large price gains. Transco Zone 6-New York City notched a new weekly peak of $19 in leading most Northeast citygates in triple-digit spikes as the region hunkered down for yet another nor’easter barrage.

Texas Eastern M-3, Niagara and the non-NYC pool of Transco Zone 6 lagged well behind neighboring Northeastern points in recording advances of only 30-45 cents or so. They tended to fit in more with the non-Northeast market, where Tuesday’s upticks tended to range from about a dime (California) to a little more than 30 cents (Waha/Permian Basin).

One source said an OFO by El Paso (see Transportation Notes) lent some support to Waha/Permian quotes, but they were also driven up by demand from frigid Midcontinent/Midwest markets and also by intrastate Texas heating load, where a newly arrived cold front blanketed nearly the entire state and took Houston thermometers to near-freezing early Tuesday morning.

A New England utility buyer said that following the current siege of winter storms, the are can expect a little bit of warmer weather coming at the end of the week, “then it’s back to seasonal cold.” She resented having to pay nearly $10 for swing gas at Texas Eastern M-3 (“too high”), but granted that wasn’t as bad as the New York city market and New England citygates.

A factor helping boost prices in eastern Canada and the U.S. Northeast and Midwest was subzero cold in Alberta, which prompted NOVA to change imbalance tolerance levels to preserve linepack (see Transportation Notes). A Calgary-based producer said the pipeline was running about 1 Bcf under its linepack target Tueday and thus acted to keep more gas at home than usual. It was about minus 30 degrees C. (minus 26 F.) in Calgary, he said, and although the province’s wellheads normally can withstand very cold weather without freezing off, a sustained period of ultra-low temperatures is causing some production losses. Intra-Alberta numbers jumped “more than a buck and a half” to around C$8, he said.

A marketer reported a “surprisingly weak Chicago market” in both swing trading and for February baseload. Although incremental Chicago quotes jumped about a quarter to the mid $6.00s Tuesday, he couldn’t help comparing that to the jumps above $12 on average at several Northeast points. He noted that Midwest and Upper Plains weather is at least as cold or even colder than that to the East, yet delivered prices in the Midwest are seeing none of the same volatility.

The market added that he believes Wednesday will be the coldest day in the near-term forecast for the Midwest, so Tuesday’s prices might have represented the highs of the week.

But for another trader, the Midwest’s subdued market in comparison with the Northeast was just fine. “There is just a little cold weather down here in the [lower] Midwest,” he said. “Not really enough to springboard prices, but when there is a little weather, all it takes is some additional supply shortage or other news to really stir things up.” The trader said his bidweek activity has been moderate so far. Basis is normal, he aded, “and numbers have been as expected. It’s practically so normal I’ve been waiting to see if anything will be out of the ordinary. So far nothing has jumped out at me. But like I said, the Midwest has got no reason to get those kind of prices they are experiencing in the Northeast.”

The National Weather Service sees cold temperatures for almost the entire U.S. in its forecast for the Feb. 2-6 workweek. NWS predicted below normal readings for nearly every region except the West Coast states and the western parts of Idaho, Nevada and Arizona, where it looks for normal conditions. Maine is the only state where the agency expects above normal temperatures.

Analyst Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers, saying the “coldest weather of the season should lead to a large draw this week,” estimated that storage withdrawals totaled 185 Bcf for the week ended Jan. 24. Citigroup’s Kyle Cooper said his final estimation for the upcoming EIA report is 179-189 Bcf.

A marketer reported Chicago citygates trading for February in a $5.82-90 range Tuesday, which he said was stable from the day before. A Sumas package was quoted in the mid $5.10s by a producer.

“So far we haven’t done any bidweek deals,” said a West Coast utility buyer. “We are biding our time, waiting for more action. I think Wednesday will be the big day for bidweek. We’ll be picking up the pieces if necessary come Thursday.”

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