A “comfort zone” was one trader’s description of the relativelyflat cash market over the last few days. And why not? After asummer chuck full of record setting temperatures and hurricanehype, supply and demand appear to have reached some semblance ofequilibrium. Many sellers saw their best prices early yesterdaybefore the market slipped lower in lackluster late morningdealings.

It was a “strange” day at Henry Hub for one marketer. People hadalready bought about 500 MMcf by 8:30 a.m. CDT, he said, pushingearly prices up about a nickel. The point lost a penny or two asthe morning advanced, he went on, before “tanking” just beforedeadline. “I think a lot of people panicked and bought real early,wanting control of the situation. As the day went on, they sawthere was a lot of gas out there, and then the dumping began.”

Other Gulf points ended the day in the mid $2.40s, the marketersaid, and all of them were extremely weak in the late going. Thesofter trend was also noted by sources in other markets. However,the marketer said, CNG South Point was an exception, tradingstrongly all the way around $2.70, approximately even with TranscoZone 6 pool.

Northern California was one of the day’s higher markets. Evenwith a low-linepack OFO having expired, there was still plenty ofdemand on the PG&E system, and citygate prices were strong incomparison to the Southern California border, a buyer said. Hethought that was chiefly due to outages at several nuclear plantsin the West.

“Kingsgate wasn’t working [Thursday] because of the ABC[Alberta-British Columbia border] constraints,” a Calgary sourcesaid (NOVA was allowing only about 90% of firm service at ABC). “Wefound it cheaper to buy at Stanfield and save the fuel charge fromKingsgate.”

The former Tropical Depression 11 in the Bay of Campeche hasbeen reduced to a low-pressure trough. The most significant thingleft on the tropical horizon is Tropical Depression 12, which is alittle more than 1,000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles andtrudging slowly to the west-northwest.

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