Despite the arrival of another severe winter storm — this onein the Midcontinent — the majority of spot points leaned to thedownside Thursday.

Even with a blizzard causing “practically all of Oklahoma toshut down,” a Tulsa-based trader said, Midcontinent pipes were nostronger than flat in a few cases and down by as much as a dime inothers, including Midwest citygates. Many Midcontinent tradingoffices were short-staffed because of workers unable to get towork, and early-afternoon exits to go home were common.

The storm was heading for the Southeast, but the prospect ofincreasing load there generated little in the way of Gulf Coastupticks. Most Gulf points were flat. Mild increases on Tennesseeand Texas Eastern probably were more attributable to continued highdemand from the Northeast than to the impending Southern storm,according to an aggregator. Tennessee Line 500 stayed among thetop-priced Gulf pipes because of a variety of capacity constraintson the pipe, she said.

A marketer said he saw some supply tightness develop at HenryHub as someone who had been a significant seller there for the pastthree weeks turned into a buyer Thursday.

Northeast deliveries again were hugely volatile as the regionstarted to settle down from its most recent bout with a winterstorm. The extremes in pricing averages went from about 25 centshigher at Tennessee Zone 6 to more than a dollar lower at TranscoZone 6-NYC.

Western markets tended to be Thursday’s weakest, largely due toa high-linepack OFO issued by PG&E. Drops of up to a dimedominated in California, the Rockies, Southwest, Pacific Northwestand western Canada. “It’s really mild here in Calgary,” one tradersaid. “We’re around the freezing level.”

The San Juan Basin/California border spread dropped to less thana dime, which meant essentially nobody was hauling basin gas to theborder because they couldn’t recover variable transportation costsof about 13 cents, a marketer said. Supply alternatives at theborder included in-state gas, storage, Kern River and Kern RiverStation, he said.

With some pipeline OFOs in their second week and others vying tocomplete the first week of their run, it’s obvious that the recentspate of harsh winter weather has been severely testing the gastransmission grid. There has been no deliverability crisis,although buyers have had to pay up to very high levels to get gasat some points such as the Transco Zone 6-New York City pool.

The February market is looking “stronger than garlic” with thelast-day futures run-up, one trader said. Fixed prices were still alittle on the scarce side as one source said he was still moreconcerned with day trades than bidweek and others reported mostlyindexed trading. One said he was doing all-index deals so farbecause of the “fluky” screen. A marketer quoting Chicago citygatesin the $2.65-70 range said a post-expiration (futures) run-up therewas typical.

AGA’s snowstorm-delayed report of 195 Bcf in storage withdrawalslast week received mixed response from the gas trading community.One source called it “a hair bullish.” But a Gulf Coast marketersaid anything below 200 Bcf was disappointing since prior estimateshad run as high as 220 Bcf.

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