Cash prices continued this week’s slide Wednesday, although thedescent wasn’t as steep as on the day before. Most of the newdeclines were around a dime or slightly more. The few pipes fallingless than a dime tended to be clustered in the Midcontinent.

In the absence of a change in market fundamentals, cash wasfollowing the screen lower early on but it also rebounded modestlyas futures made a late-morning recovery, sources said. They agreedthat the AGA report of 81 Bcf in storage injections last week wasundeniably bearish and likely will lead to further price dropstoday. A marketer was confident in predicting another “80-plus, atleast” report next Wednesday.

It looks like the market is settling into another very quietperiod, a couple of marketers said. Activity certainly was slowWednesday, they said, with one adding that mid-September vacationsseemed to be popular among gas traders.

Prices for physical gas have essentially nothing in the way ofsupport right now, a producer acknowledged, “but I can’t helpthinking supply shortages are going to get more serious in anothermonth or two.” He also noted the October crude oil futures contracthad moved back above $24/bbl Wednesday.

“It seems kind of odd that after all the ‘storm hype’ talk ofrecent weeks, we’d have one of the nastiest hurricanes in history[Floyd] just on the other side of Florida from the Gulf of Mexicowithout any impact on gas prices,” one marketer commented. “MaybeGert will have more of an effect.” The National Weather Serviceupgraded Hurricane Gert to Category 4 and said it was still movingwestward about 800 miles east of the Leeward Islands as ofWednesday afternoon.

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