There was almost no consistency in price movements Wednesday,although a slight majority of the changes were downward. Rises andfalls mixed with each other in the Gulf Coast andMidcontinent/Midwest.

However, the trends in the Northeast and California were alldown, while most of the Rockies/San Juan points except Sumas andKingsgate saw fairly substantial increases. Once again Transco Zone6 (NYC) led the downturns with a drop of a little more than sixdollars.

Cash traders got little guidance from futures numbers thatranged to either side of flat during morning activity, but theycontinued to sit up and take notice of the first major breaks fromseverely cold weather in several weeks for key market areas. Someforecasters have started saying the jet stream, which had beenpushing arctic air into the Deep South previously, has shiftednorthward and eastward again, said a Houston-based source. That’s asign that more moderate weather is likely to be sustained for awhile, he added.

“There’s plenty of gas out there. It’s just a case of how muchyou’re willing to pay for it,” said an eastern buyer. “And at leastfor now, we’re not having to pay as much as in the last couple ofweeks.”

Even though it was a holiday week, natural gas storagewithdrawals last week topped the 200 Bcf mark — a first forDecember — but it didn’t impress the market. AGA said 209 Bcf wastaken out of storage last week, led by a whopping 142 Bcf in theConsuming Region East alone. And a sampling of other tradersindicated that the biggest-ever December drawdown was essentiallyneutral in their estimation. The screen, which had drifted frommoderately stronger in the morning to moderately softer in theearly afternoon, spiked just as the report came out, but if youblinked you may have missed it. Almost immediately afterward theuptick was reversed, with the February contract eventually settlingdown almost 18 cents on the day.

The frigid weather of the last week of 2000 apparently washarsher than people thought, a marketer said, since even industrialsuspensions of operations between Christmas and New Year’s andother demand reductions associated with a holiday period failed toavert a huge withdrawal that left total U.S. working gas at only53% full with a lot of winter left to go.

Gas traders were keeping an eye on the California situation,where the state Public Utilities Commission is expected today toapprove Wednesday’s proposal to grant Southern California Edisonand Pacific Gas & Electric an emergency 90-day electric ratehike of 1 cent/KWh. However, their consensus was that the CPUCaction was a “joke,” with one terming it “way too little, way toolate.” No one expected it to avert bankruptcy filings by the twoutilities or rolling blackouts later this year.

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