The cash market made more small gains Wednesday, but downturnsin late trading at many points led sources to believe this week’sprice rally has ended, at least for the time being. Prices ran up3-4 cents at the outset but then came off hard at the tail end inresponse to the screen, said a Gulf Coast trader. As long asfutures stayed up, though, cash stayed right there with them, headded.

While there is a lot of demand out there, according to amarketer, AGA’s storage injection report of 100 Bcf “is prettybearish.” Cash won’t rise any more unless futures pricing runs upfirst, and that’s unlikely, he said, “but looking at recent screenactivity, anything can happen.”

Chicago citygates started strong in the high $2.30s but came offto the $2.32-35 range “when the screen broke,” one source toldDaily GPI. Another trader who saw TCO pool numbers begin at $2.42but come down to $2.36 commented, “People thought this thing wasgoing to go through the roof today, but it didn’t make it.”

Southwest prices continued to be supported by the heat in Texas,a producer said. However, he regretted that “we held on to the gastoo long” after an early El Paso-Permian (Keystone pool) sale at$2.11 was followed by two more around $2.06-07. He thinks buyerswere already preparing for next week’s El Paso maintenance thatwill take 800 MMcf/d off the San Juan-Blanco market May 18-19.

Another trader in the Southwest was surprised that marketactivity was so light on the first day in more than a week when notrade fairs were claiming the attention of sizable segments of thetrading community.

©Copyright 1998 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press,Inc.