Prices failed to maintain the upward momentum that had begun theweek, slipping lower by a nickel to a dime at nearly all pointsTuesday. Traders were unable to ignore the cumulative negativedemand effect of more than 40 cities setting all-time hightemperature records for the month of November over the previousweek. And although one marketer said the screen had little bearingon day-to-day cash pricing, the nickel-plus drop in futuresprovided no support for cash.

Record warmth will continue through today in the Southwest andPlains states, according to The Weather Channel. Colder weatherwill arrive eventually but not until later this week, it said.

“People are bearish all over, and the [gas] load just isn’tthere,” a Midcontinent marketer said. As of today there are only 13days left in November, he noted, “and nearly half [six] of themfall on weekends and holidays,” which will cut into demand evenmore.

Even end-users came out selling gas Tuesday, “and that’s a suresign of no demand,” a western trader said. Despite his being basedin California, he sounded more like a Missourian in proclaiming,”It’s a ‘show me’ market right now. Show me the cold weather. Showme the lack of supply.”

The Northeast continued to be a bastion of relative pricestrength as New England citygates via Algonquin and Tennessee andboth of Transco’s Zone 6 pools (New York City and non-NYC) rangedfrom flat to a little over a nickel higher. Although Zone 6-NYC hada lower top end on its range than on the day before, enoughbusiness was being done at higher prices to raise the average about7 cents. A lot of people seemed to be really short of gas in Zone6, and there also is a supply constraint at Transco’s Linden (NJ)Regulator Station, a buyer said. Zone 6 prices tended to start attheir lows and spiked somewhat in later deals, he said. A Southwesttrader reported a similar tendency of prices creeping up towardsthe end due to short supply squeezes.

Once again intra-Alberta prices ran contrary to the generalmarket softness as traders had to cope with rapidly changing NOVAconditions. After setting its daily imbalance tolerance at 0/-20%Monday due to high linepack, NOVA returned to its normal +10%/-10%band Tuesday morning only to revise it further to +20%/0 thatafternoon. In addition to that keeping his schedulers hopping, oneCalgary trader said gas was being returned to him at the Waddingtonexport point into Iroquois and he would have to find a new home forit.

A Rockies source reported losing some supplies on WyomingInterstate Co. (WIC) due to KN tying in facilities at the DouglasPlant.

One marketer was unable to provide his usual quotes forCarthage, Katy and the Houston Ship Channel. “We’re mostly juststorage players at Texas points,” he explained, “and the storageaccounts are pretty well full now.” However, the marketer plans tobe selling the storage gas next month, at which time he expectsprices to be considerably stronger than they are currently.

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