As traders had expected, prices used Thursday afternoon’s andFriday morning’s futures strength as a springboard to achieveincreases that were mostly between a nickel and a dime Friday.

Though it eventually wound up the day with a small net loss, thescreen’s venture upward into the low $2.80s during the morninghours provided enough impetus for cash gas to rise in spite of thenormal weekend slump in demand. Most sources agreed the physicalmarket was entirely Nymex-driven.

A cold front leaving freezing temperatures in its wake in theUpper Midwest wasn’t cooling things off quite so much in theNortheast, but still may have had some influence in causing some ofthe day’s larger gains at citygates in both regions. However, asone Houston trader observed, “It may be cold in the the Midwest,but it’s not like anybody has any trouble getting gas up there.There’s plenty of supply and transport capacity.” He thought itlikely was a case of “gaming” when a couple of major Chicagoplayers were buying a lot of gas after 10 a.m. CST, when most ofthe day’s business has already been concluded. “We thought maybethey were long gas and just trying to push prices higher,” whichthey managed to do in the late going, he said.

Curiously, despite having about the most frigid market area inthe U.S., Northern Natural’s demarc and Ventura points saw theday’s weakest gains of only a penny or two. And although a warmingtrend in Alberta was due to continue through the weekend,provincial prices experienced some of the strongest increases intothe upper C$2.50s.

San Juan Basin increases were small largely due to warmingtemperatures in California, a marketer said.

It’s safe to predict that market activity will slow downconsiderably this week and indexing will rise correspondingly dueto the Houston Energy Expo, several sources said.

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