With the exception of plunging Northeast citygates, softness was rather mild Thursday in other regions. Nearly all non-Northeast points ranged from essentially flat to down less than a dime. But several sources saw signs of much greater price weakness to come in today’s trading for the weekend.

“It’s not really too much of a stretch to predict a price collapse for Friday, although I wouldn’t want to write this market off entirely,” said a Gulf Coast trader.

The expectations of potentially steep dives in today’s numbers were based largely on three factors: the AGA report of only 124 Bcf in storage withdrawals last week, which was near the low end of prior guesses; the February futures contract ending the regular-outcry session down just shy of 20 cents; and forecasts of moderating weather in several key market areas, which were already manifesting themselves Thursday in the Northeast citygates’ declines of 20-40 cents or so.

“Too little, too late” was one eastern utility buyer’s assessment of the overall market impact of the siege of winter weather that has invaded much of the U.S. since a few days before Christmas. “It’s not cold enough and not lasting long enough to keep prices from crashing. This low storage withdrawal volume from AGA will make sure of that.”

A Gulf Coast marketer saw no reason to argue the point. “You know my story all along,” he said. “A lot of pent-up selling pressure [at Nymex] was waiting for a January go-ahead” from top corporate management, and Thursday may have represented the dam starting to burst.

“It behooves many people to leave their gas in storage through the summer,” the marketer went on. “The time value of storage bought last summer” makes its current equivalent price close to $4, and thus those who aren’t required to cycle storage at least once a year would be better off to take flowing supplies at around $2.50 or less. He noted that Thursday’s cash Henry Hub average of around $2.50 placed it nearly a quarter above the screen.

Although the Northeast is due to see milder weather into the weekend, a regional buyer said today’s trading probably will be “interesting” because the forecast is for a return of cold by Monday. That might make some people want to do combinations of one-day and two-day deals for the varying weather periods, he said. However, although he agreed that such arrangements might be desirable, a Houston-based trader didn’t see them as feasible. “Right now the pipes aren’t being very flexible about that kind of thing [splitting up weekend nomination periods].”

With most Rockies pipes running throughout the $2.00s Thursday, a marketer saw it as quite likely that all of today’s quotes would be under $2. In fact, CIG and Kern River actually got to $1.99 at the bottom end of their ranges Thursday. Although PG&E is ending a high-linepack OFO today (see Transportation Notes), Kern River was advising shippers yesterday of a high-linepack situation of its own.

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