Bears came out of the gate in force Thursday in reaction to ahigher than expected 91 Bcf storage injection, a plummeting futuresscreen and cooling temperatures in the Northeast. But for all thesound and fury most points stayed flat to Wednesday’s results orregistered minuscule drops of a penny or so.

The onslaught of bearish fundamental news was the least oftraders worries yesterday, however. Energy trading took a severehit from a devastating computer virus that was delivered as anemail attachment named “zipped_files.exe.” When activated, thevirus proceeds to destroy files with various extensions. The virus,called Worm.Explore.Zip, which originated in Israel, was reportedby several companies and seriously inhibited El Paso’sHouston-based marketing operation. “We got infected around 1 p.m.and had to shut everything down. Basically, we were out ofcommission at that point,” an El Paso spokeswoman said. “[Friday],we have special instructions on how to reboot and hopefully, nottoo much was lost.”

Those who were trading attributed the cash market’s support inthe face of a bearish storage report, moderating demand andplummeting futures to utilities playing catch-up on storageinjections after relying on stored gas during the heat wave earlierthis week.

Alberta was able to fend off the bears Thursday because of anextension of a NOVA system outage (see Transportation Notes).Intra-Alberta was trading in the mid- to high-C$2.80s as it hasbeen all week. Maintenance has taken longer than expected and iskeeping more than 1 Bcf of gas off the system.

In Florida, a trader who did deals on Sonat in the mid to high$2.30s said the situation was going to get worse before it getsbetter. “Everything is in limbo right now. Demand is soft due tomild weather, and oil is cheaper to use than gas right now. I thinkSonat is going to get down to the low $2.30s, and then action willpick up because that is when gas will become cheaper than oil.”

Although the Northeast markets finished lower Thursday, the fallwas nowhere near as large as Wednesday’s price drop. The New YorkCitygate lost a couple of cents, but still stayed in the mid$2.50s. “People are realizing the need is just not there anymore,”a Northeast source said, but he admitted that he did not know howmuch farther the Northeast prices would fall. Temperatures in NewYork were in the low to mid 70s yesterday, and forecasts call foronly a mild warm-up into the low 80s over the weekend.

One source, quoting Sumas prices in the low $2.00s, calledwestern points the “Energizer Bunnies” of the cash market. Hedefied a widespread industry belief that snowmelt and subsequentabundance of hydropower will drive down prices in the West. “Idon’t think anything can bring these prices down. Look at[Thursday]. The screen slid down fast, but Sumas is trading flat.There is enough demand to go around, and I don’t see anythinglowering prices.”

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