The cash market continued to muddle around with essentially nodirection for a second straight day Friday, leaving weekend numbersmostly unchanged. The few drops of about a nickel occurred atWestern points-intra-Alberta, Stanfield, Malin and SouthernCalifornia border-and chiefly resulted from the lifting of supplyand/or transportation constraints that allowed more gas back intothe market.

For all the hubbub traders raised Thursday afternoon about theloss of half a Bcf/d from the Chaco plant fire, Friday’s market inthe Southwest was surprisingly complacent. San Juan Basin priceswere flat in the low $1.70s, leaving one source wondering if theChaco situation might not have been “hyped up” a bit. A marketerreported experiencing 10-15% Chaco-related supply cuts in forcemajeure declarations, “but that wasn’t too hard to work around.”Another trader said the Chaco outage may even have improved flowsat the Southern California border. Saturday-Sunday border numberswere down a few cents to the low $2.20s, she said, but Monday-onlypurchases were back up a couple of cents.

Transwestern, where a heat-related force majeure on the westernend was in its second week, was topping El Paso in the PermianBasin by about a nickel going into the weekend.

An East Texas producer said the utilities to whom she solddidn’t want much gas because they could get it cheaper “out west.”In addition, Northeast utilities were giving back gas atmid-morning, she said.

A marketer reported forward-looking interest at Sumas, citingnumbers in the mid $1.40s for September and in the mid $1.50s forOctober for an average of just over $1.50 for the two-month strip.

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