Once again softening cash prices followed the lead of theprevious afternoon’s screen movement, and if that tendencycontinues to hold true, expect another falling cash market today.Wednesday’s declines ranged from about a nickel to 20 cents, andCalifornia stood out again with losses greater than those in thegeneral market.

Weather that keeps looking more and more spring-like is havinglittle price influence other than to dampen demand, a marketersaid. Moreover, although storage remains in a year-on-year deficit,hardly anyone is still worried about end-of-winter problems, headded. Thus traders have few price cues currently other thanfutures, he said, and that appears to bode further softness.

AGA almost could have plugged in the storage numbers from lastweek into yesterday afternoon’s report. (Actually, for a while AGAdid just that. Prior to the real report being released, the group’swebsite had a link indicating it was the report for the week endingMarch 9. But clicking on the link led instead to a repeat of thereport for the week ending March 2.) Regardless, AGA said 75 Bcf ofoverall working gas (up 2 Bcf from a week earlier) and 3 Bcf ofProducing Region base gas (down 1 Bcf) had been withdrawn. The 75Bcf figure exactly matched most prior expectations, and thefollow-up Nymex response was negative.

The Southern California border fell more than a dollar andaveraged less than $10 for only the second time in 2001; the otheroccasion was in Jan. 9 trading when next-day flows averaged $9.88.SoCal Gas remains in storage injection mode, one marketer said, andPG&E started making some injections itself this week.

A Pacific Northwest trader said her market is looking especiallysoft. Regional weather has moderated, and a new cooling trend isn’tmaterializing for the weekend as expected, she said. “Except for alousy summer for hydropower looming, there are virtually noprice-boosting influences in sight.”

Two sources reported a late rebound back above $6 for Malin.Several people appeared to be shorting the point in anticipation ofprices continuing to drop after they dipped into the upper $5.40s,one said, and then those people were unable to recuperate incovering their earlier positions.

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