The cash market decided to calm down Friday following the heatwave and futures excitement from earlier in the week. Having littlein new guidance from weather or a static screen, prices ranged fromflat to down about a nickel in most cases, with larger declines oneither side of a dime occurring in the cooled-off Northeast.

A couple of sources agreed that prices generally were softer forthe weekend but expected a rebound this week. Storage buying willstay strong, they said, and even though the Southeast through Texaswas the only region with appreciable heat Friday, other areas mayjoin it this week.

A Texas trader reported not seeing a whole lot of demand Friday,”not even from utilities,” but did detect a small pickup inindustrial load. He was annoyed about getting his volumes onFlorida Gas Transmission cut due to high pipeline pressures;”that’s my best market,” he said.

MichCon citygates maintained a premium of about a nickel overdeliveries into Consumers Power, a marketer noted. That was due notonly to the Panhandle Eastern meter into MichCon remaining outthrough the end of May but also to recent heavy volumes going intostorage on the MichCon system, he said. Lacking the Panhandle entrypoint, shippers can move gas onto Consumers and then to MichCon,the marketer went on, “but that might be uneconomic, adding theextra Consumers transport and fuel charges.” He listed otherMichCon supply alternatives as ANR, Great Lakes, St. Clair Pipelinefrom the Dawn Hub in Ontario and in-state production from northernMichigan.

A western trader said numbers in the Southwest basins and at theSouthern California border started out on their low ends and movedup during the morning. He thought that likely was due to tradersrealizing they wouldn’t be curtailed at least through Saturdayafter PG&E and SoCal Gas failed to post weekend OFO notices.However, another source said Rockies prices stayed flat for most ofthe way and then he saw a dropoff “right at the very end.”

A Rockies producer said he wasn’t sure whether he would beallocated for the weekend on storage injections into Questar’s ClayBasin storage facility as he had been over the previous weekend.”But I do know that when San Juan prices weakened, a lot of peoplewere buying there late to take gas to Clay Basin via Northwest.”

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