A few flat points, mostly in the Gulf Coast, were conspicuous amid an overall softer market Thursday. Weak weather fundamentals in most areas and the associated lack of electric utility load were responsible for declines ranging from a little under a nickel to a little more than 20 cents, sources said.

The entire market is expected to be lower Friday. A producer said he didn’t think Thursday’s moderate screen gain would be able to avert softening for the long holiday weekend, but he also didn’t expect price losses to be very big.

Widespread thunderstorms across much of the South showed no signs of abating yet, and continue to keep high temperatures under normal early-July levels. And the Northeast, which had seen heat levels edging higher earlier this week, was due to have a cold front push thermometer readings lower Thursday night.

A Gulf Coast marketer reported that Southern power generators in the South were saying “No, thanks” to new gas. This lengthy period of rain is continuing to shut out operation of many gas-fired generation units, he added. But though most points were down for the day, soft, they got a little firmer near the end of trading because of energy futures strength at Nymex, the marketer said.

A Texas-based marketer had a similar report. “All I know is that TXU [the giant electric utility in North Texas] wasn’t buying,” so intrastate Texas power generation demand was weak, she said. That was reflected in large Permian/Waha drops of about 15 cents.

Western markets got a bit of relief when PG&E ended a two-day high-linepack OFO, but then SoCalGas declared its own OFO for Friday (see Transportation Notes).

It’s a “really, really weak” market, a producer said, but prices have retreated so much this week that he doesn’t see them going much lower. Most recent sales have been for storage purposes, he observed. Chicago citygate sellers have been doing best lately by selling early, avoiding mid-morning lows and then trying again late. “You’ve got to have to some gumption to do that, though,” without worrying about getting burned, the producer added.

The Energy Information Administration said 93 Bcf got put into storage last week. The number was essentially neutral, fitting close to the middle of analyst’s prior expectations. The screen’s rise of 6.2 cents was attributed to spikes in the petroleum product futures contracts rather than any reaction to the storage report. August crude oil soared $1.69 to $38.74/bbl in response to what a news service said was a delayed reaction to Wednesday’s government reports of unexpected drops in inventories and to trader fears that Thursday’s start of criminal proceedings against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein could foment new violence against Middle East oil interests.

Trading of Canadian supplies was lighter than usual because of some people north of the border being off for the Canada Day holiday. But a Calgary-based producer who was active Thursday said it was primarily utility staffers that got the day off. “No rest for the wicked,” he jested about those who, like him, had to work.

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