Colder weather in northern market areas didn’t do much to raisecash prices, but it kept demand high enough to provide some pricesupport. Most eastern points were flat to slightly higher. In theWest, Rockies pipes emulated markets to the East with generallyflat performances, but California points fell by about a nickel ormore after PG&E announced it was lifting its two-daylow-linepack OFO.

A Northeast buyer said many locations in the region wereexpected to experience freezing temperatures overnight. Transcostood out amidst the sea of Gulf Coast flatness with upticks ofthree to five cents at all four of its production-area poolingpoints (Zones 1 through 4). A marketer believed it was due to heavyinjection activity at both the Leidy (PA) and Washington (LA)storage fields, while a Houston-based producer suggested it was theincreasingly frigid weather forecasts for the Northeast behindTransco’s firmness. The fact that deliveries in the Zone 6 poolwere flat to only slightly higher probably meant that peoplethought the economics were better for buying gas in the productionarea and transporting it than making their purchases at thecitygate, she said.

A source agreeing with the storage perception pointed out thataccording to the AGA report, as of last Friday working gas levelsin the eastern consuming region were at 1,625 Bcf, which is 41 Bcfless than a year ago and 14 Bcf less than the five-year average.Quite a few traders probably think it’s time to step up injectionsin the East, he said.

(It was unclear whether a long outage of the Transco bulletinboard system Wednesday had anything to do with the pipe’s unusualprice strength.)

Most Northeast citygates saw little change, but Algonquincitygates and Tennessee Zone 6 rose by about a nickel. Both deliverin New England, where the Northeast’s cold is likely to be mostintense.

One trader said his company’s weather consultant came up with anew forecast model in which the six-to-10 outlook calls for thecurrent Northeast chill to get colder and linger longer thanformerly expected.

The Southern California border average dropped by just over anickel despite forecasts of offshore Santa Ana winds drivingregional temperatures into the 90s today.

There was little change in the Bay of Campeche situation astropical depression 11 continued to move slow to the northwest.

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