A holding pattern developed Thursday at the majority of tradingpoints, which were flat to up or down a penny or two for an overallreading of flatness. The market was hardly a model of consistency,though, as price movement ranged from about two cents lower in theRockies to increases of about a nickel or more for the Appalachianpipes and Northeast citygates. High temperatures in the mid 80sThursday in the dry Northeast were a close match for those in therain-drenched South.

Rain continues to cap Southern cooling demand at unusually lowlevels for late June, noted a Texas aggregator. But once the raingoes away, she said, there could be as much as an extra 1 Bcf/d ofdemand appearing in the cash market from the resultant increase inpower generation. She added that intraday buying of Permian Basingas flowing to Waha started to pick up Thursday as temperaturescrept higher in the mostly dry North Texas region.

A buyer who paid $2.31 early at the Chicago citygate said helived to regret it as later quotes dipped into the high $2.20s dueto “no weather in Chicago.”

A short supply situation occurred in late San Juan Basintrading, a marketer said. Late prices ran as high as $2.06 as lowliquidity left some buyers out to dry, she added. Despite thereported squeeze, an unplanned outage on Transwestern’s San JuanLateral (see Transportation Notes) didn’t seem to be causing anybig problems, although it may have been responsible for someturnbacks of San Juan gas late Wednesday, a producer said. He wassurprised at no change in Southern California border pricesThursday even with Transwestern beginning a total outage of Topockdeliveries (about 400 MMcf/d) today. The spread between San JuanBasin and the border has widened from 30 cents to about 32 cents,he said, but that’s not much difference for such a sizeable outage.He speculated that increased supplies on El Paso and from theRockies may have kept border pricing flat.

Pacific Gas & Electric did not reinstate a high-inventoryOFO but was projecting its linepack would be at least 200 MMcf ormore above target volume for Thursday through Sunday. PG&Ecitygates were flat Thursday.

It’s looking as if July will see higher prices than June, said asource reporting general Midcontinent basis at minus 12. A westerntrader agreed, saying July prices were a little higher Thursdaythan Wednesday’s levels. He quoted fixed pricing of $1.92-95 atSumas, $1.98-2.00 for the Rockies in general, and $2.15-18 atMalin.

A producer was doing basis deals at minus 1.75 for TGT Zone SL,minus 5.75 for Trunkline-East Louisiana, minus 7.25 for Tennessee’s500 Leg, minus 3.5 for Columbia Gulf-onshore and plus 11.25 forColumbia-Appalachia. However, she went on, “I’m doing a lot moreindexing than basis.”

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