Pardon the cash market if it was getting that old sensation ofdeja vu Wednesday. In an almost exact repeat of a week earlier,prices were rising somewhere in the vicinity of a dime in mostcases; but once again the screen took a dive following theafternoon storage report, prompting sources to predict today’strading will emulate the double-digit declines of last Thursday.

When AGA said 70 Bcf had been injected into storage last week,it compared to a report of 78 Bcf for the comparable week in 1999,indicating the year-on-year refill deficit had started to growagain. Thus more than one cash trader was mystified why people inthe Nymex pit would take what had been an essentially flat Augustfutures contract during the morning and drive it down to a 16-centloss on the day.

A Calgary marketer offered a fairly reasonable explanation: Thebulk of last week’s injection, 52 Bcf, came in the Consuming RegionEast, where full storage caverns are most important in the winter.And it doesn’t look like the Northeast is going to get anyappreciable air conditioning load for at least another week,according to the National Weather Service’s six- to 10-dayforecast. Thus, even though the overall deficit rose, futurestraders are getting more complacent about eastern markets nothaving any storage problems looming, she concluded.

Regardless of futures rationales, it seems safe to expectfalling prices today “because cash markets will be led around likea herd of sheep by the screen once more,” a Gulf Coast producersaid.

Wednesday’s top gainer was Malin, up more than to 20 cents. Awestern marketer perceived a bit of a short supply squeeze there,which he attributed at least in part to a Power Watch issued forSouthern California Wednesday by the California Independent SystemOperator. Presumably all the state’s peaking gas-fired generationunits were active to cope with the situation, he said, and PG&Ewas expecting linepack to be hovering around its lower targetlevels until the weekend.

Predictably, the smallest price upticks of less than a nickelcame in the Rockies. Northwest domestic numbers rose only a couplecents as the regional market feels more of the impact fromWestcoast’s Fort Nelson Plant returning to about 450 MMcf/d ofprocessing capacity early Tuesday following a lengthy maintenanceshutdown.

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