Prices rallied Monday almost solely on prior-Friday screen support and continued storage buying in the nascent injection season because weather-related demand remained in short supply. Snow and 30-degree high temperatures were expected on Tuesday only along the eastern slope of the Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming, The Weather Channel said, and a Calgary-based producer said that although overnight lows are in the 20s, daytime highs in the mid-50s are “pretty mild for us.”

Nearly all of Monday’s advances were in double digits, but NGPL-TexOk was an exception with a rise of slightly under a dime. Otherwise the upticks ranged from a little more than a dime to a little more than 40 cents and were fairly evenly spread among the geographic market areas.

Cash market firmness is unlikely to last, however. The screen gave back more than the 9.6-cent gain it achieved Friday by dropping nearly 16 cents Monday, and it influenced Monday’s late cash quotes to move lower, which is usually a strong indicator of the direction of next-day trading, sources said.

Gas could find no backing in the oil markets either, as all of Nymex’s petroleum-related products saw moderate losses. After peaking briefly above $58/bbl during the morning, crude oil for May delivery slipped to a daily settlement of $57.01, down 26 cents.

The weather “is not bad at all around here,” the producer in Calgary said. Monday’s cash gains were almost all Nymex-driven, he said. There was certainly no weather-related load, but he reported that “good storage buying” was still in effect due to customers expecting higher prices this summer from tight energy markets all around. The screen’s morning weakening was pulling prices for physical gas down in the last few deals he saw.

Traders can assuredly look for lower prices Tuesday if you go by basis spreads, the producer continued. He expects the Chicago citygate to be priced in the $7.40s, down 15-20 cents or so, and Midcontinent pipes in general to be in the $6.80s.

It was definitely springtime around the Upper Midwest, said a regional marketer who reported a 65-degree high Monday and a forecast of 70 for Tuesday. Her company didn’t buy any new gas “because we were looking at $8.06” offers as a Consumers Energy delivered price, which would have represented a 30-cent gain from Friday’s average. The marketer said she could still afford to hang loose “and wait for prices to come our way,” which looked like a good bet due to the size of the screen’s fall Monday.

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