Except for only slightly lower numbers on most Rockies pipes and gains at related Sumas and Westcoast Station 2, all points recorded double-digit (triple-digit in the case of Transco Zone 6-NYC) losses Friday. There was still plenty of hot weather to go around, especially in the South, Mid-Atlantic and desert Southwest, but enough moderation had occurred from the severe levels earlier in the week that prices succumbed to the drag of a bearish storage report/screen the day before and the usual demand slump over a weekend.

A cold front that some had thought might bring weekend relief to the baking Northeast was only marginally successful, leaving much of the region due to remain hot and humid through the weekend. Despite that and rising power prices for Monday delivery in the PJM and Nepool (New England) grids, area citygates tended to fall between a dime and a quarter. Though it remained the most expensive of them all, Transco Zone 6-NYC continued to come down from its earlier rarefied heights by dropping more than two dollars into the $3.70s.

A Rockies trader said that although most of the region’s pipes saw only small declines, the trend was downward as the morning went on. CIG began slightly higher in the $1.50s but was down to the $1.30s at the end, he said. He reported seeing the pipe bid at 90 cents near deadline, but didn’t think anything got done there. Cold weather in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest was not helping Rockies prices, the trader said, adding that Denver would be seeing highs in the 80s.

After trading as high as $1.45 early, Questar was falling precipitously below a dollar in late deals. The Cheyenne Hub, only a few cents lower on average, also saw a sub-dollar quote near deadline. A marketer suspected that some people got caught holding extra gas at the end and had to accept fire-sale prices.

Continuing to contrast sharply with the heat being felt south of the border, Western Canada remained unseasonably cold Friday and was due to stay that way into the weekend, a Calgary producer said, noting somewhat incredulously that it had snowed in the mountain resort town of Banff and more was in the forecast. “For three weeks we had unusually warm weather, and now it’s turned around completely,” he said. “I’m pretty sure furnaces are getting turned on at night when it gets down to about 3 degrees Celsius” (high 30s Fahrenheit).

The producer noted that Alliance shippers were getting a bit of a break because the pipeline raised its AOS (Authorized Overrun Service) to 10% Saturday through Monday, allowing him to move larger volumes to Chicago. But AOS will get cut to 2% again Tuesday as Alliance begins new compressor maintenance; he expects AOS to range between 2% and 5% throughout August.

A Northeast marketer was puzzled over why Columbia-Appalachia (TCO) was still maintaining a premium of nearly 15 cents over Dominion South Point for the weekend, saying that was unprecedented. There was some rationale for TCO strength earlier in the week when Transco Zone 6-NYC was soaring well above the rest of the market, he said, because then “all the TCO gas that could move into Transco was doing so.” But now that Zone 6 is returning to normal, he wondered what was continuing to support the TCO premium.

The marketer added, “We didn’t think there would be that much IT coming open at Linden over the weekend.” The Linden (NJ) Regulator Station is a Transco bottleneck that was partially responsible for last week’s New York City spikes, but the pipeline said Friday that 150,000 Dth/d of IT would be available there Saturday until further notice.

The Transco Station 30 pool, which has been trading at an unusual discount to other South Texas points for weeks due to a construction constraint at Station 35, was beginning to recover Friday, as the pipeline ended the work and had Station 35 at nearly full capacity again (see Transportation Notes). Station 30 numbers in the low to mid $2.80s were essentially at parity with all neighboring pipes except FGT Zone 1, which was priced about a dime higher. Station 30 likely will regain its customary modest premium this week, one source said.

Prices squeezed up a few pennies at the end in the Midcontinent and at the Chicago citygate, a producer said, “but it wasn’t the Nymex this time, it was the shorts” [people having to fill short supply positions]. “There is not a lot of momentum in this market. It is fairly well balanced, so unless we get some more heat, I am guessing things will stay fairly flat on Monday.”

The intra-Alberta market may be fairly illiquid Monday, as many Calgary traders take the federal Heritage Day holiday off. However, some indicated they would be in for awhile in the morning to take care of whatever is necessary.

The 2002 Atlantic hurricane season has gone through two full months with no activity of any consequence. But don’t relax now; the normal height of the season is just beginning.

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