While eastern markets meandered around in a generally flatperformance Monday, the West was achieving significant gains ofabout a nickel or more. Topping the list was San Juan Basin, wheresupply outages helped drive quotes up by about 15 cents. Prices inthe Rockies, Pacific Northwest and western Canada also were strongdue to cold weather. It snowed in Calgary Monday morning, onesource said, adding this is late in the season for snow but not arecord for Calgary.

A marketer estimated as much as 600 MMcf/d from San Juan isbeing held off the market as a heavy maintenance month continues inthe basin. A producer agreed with that assessment and said heexpects San Juan pricing to remain strong through the end of Maybecause of the plant and compressor station outages. But it’s adouble-edged sword for producers, he went on. It’s nice to havehigher prices for your gas, “but if as much as 75% of it is beingcurtailed, that doesn’t do you any good at all.” Even inlow-maintenance periods the basin has flow problems at times, hesaid.

Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast was unable to take advantage of itsusual post-weekend price recovery, even with mild encouragementfrom the Henry Hub futures contract for June, a marketer in theregion said. Only a few pipes were able to manage gains as small asa penny, he said.

A Houston-based producer said market activity was considerablylighter than usual because many traders were attending theGasMart/Power ’99 trade fair in Dallas. And to compound thatsituation, a severe thunderstorm knocked out power across much ofthe western half of Houston early in the morning.

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