The cash market for the concluding days of November hadsomething in common with the famed cliff divers of Acapulco:breathtakingly steep plunges. “You better hope you sold your gasearly” Wednesday because there was almost no demand for the longholiday weekend, a marketer said, “and you just can’t cook thoseThanksgiving turkeys long enough [in gas ovens] to boost demand.”

Double-digit decreases littered much of the landscape Wednesday,with the exception of mild softness in the Appalachia/Northeastmarket. Columbia Gas even managed a flat performance. Columbia poolgas has been trading at near-parity with Northeast citygates inrecent weeks due to continuing capacity constraints at the pipe’sinterconnects.

One Gulf Coast marketer said a negative incremental priceenvironment was set up at least partially by a number of pipelinesprotecting themselves against high weekend linepack by issuingOperational Flow Orders or warnings of their possibility.

But although bidweek pricing retreated slightly in some areasWednesday, the marketer did not see the late-November weaknessbeing matched in December prices. The reason, she said, is buyersare agressive because they see good value in these price levels,but sellers suspect they might do better by trading on a swingbasis for December and taking their gas into the aftermarket.

A Northeastern utility buyer certainly considered the bidweeknumbers he was seeing as good value. “Who would have believed beingable to buy [Transco] Station 65 in the $2.00s for December?” heasked. “It’s like El Nino never left the building,” referring toforecasts calling for warmer-than-normal temperatures to continueinto early December.

Except for flat to slightly higher quotes in theMidcontinent/Midwest, where one trader perceived modest supplyshortness, the small boost given to bidweek pricing by Tuesday’slate screen run-up had faded Wednesday. The bearish weatherforecasts were responsible, sources said.

Except for Hurricane Mitch’s devastation in Central America, the1998 hurricane season has been quiet since the end of September.But Tropical Storm Nicole was moving westward a little over 1,000miles west of the Canary Islands at midday Wednesday. It wasexpected to gradually weaken, the National Weather Service said,and thus pose no threat to Gulf of Mexico production.

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