With the futures screen “crashing and burning,” as a producerdescribed it, November bidweek numbers also took a tumble Thursday.However, because much of the futures plunge occurred after swingtrading for today’s flow had been completed, incremental pricesgenerally were down only a nickel or so.

Natural gas wasn’t the only big fall guy in the energy futurestrading complex. Crude oil futures for December plunged by morethan $1.20 to settle below $22/bbl.

A marketer noted that his Michigan citygates for November hadbegun the week in the low $3.20s, climbed to the mid $3.30s throughWednesday, and then fell hard back into the high $3.10s Thursday.”I think with this falling market, the sellers were just anxious toget it over with as fast as possible,” he said.

Another trader was moaning about having bought most of hisbaseload right after the Nymex settlement Wednesday, when mostNovember prices were at their peak. “We only caught a little of theslide down [Thursday],” he said.

In the dwindling late-October swing market, most of the weaknesscame in the Gulf Coast and Midcontinent production areas, althoughscattered points in those areas managed flat showings. One of therare major drops of more than a dime came at the Chicago citygate,where swing numbers in the low $3.00s were a far spread fromNovember citygates being reported in the $3.20s earlier. “That’snot my idea of convergence,” one source commented.

Because cash didn’t have much time to follow the screen down,several sources agreed that a huge drop in weekend prices is almosta certainty today. Still, one was able to look at the situationthis way: “Even with the big futures fall, as a producer we’ll beglad to take a $2.96 screen.”

Although it did not issue an OFO, PG&E was projecting thatlinepack will be at least 200 MMcf above its target level throughSunday.

Because Nov. 1 will be on Monday, trading today is going to be”rather trying,” a marketer said. People that haven’t alreadywrapped up their bidweek deals will be trading for November,Saturday-Sunday swing and Monday-only swing. And to furthercomplicate things, the marketer went on, the change early Sundayfrom daylight savings time to standard clock time will result in anOct. 30 gas day that is 25 hours long.

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