It had appeared Thursday the tumble back down for cash pricesmight get just as steep as the climb upward had been earlier lastweek. But in Friday’s trading for the weekend, the downward slopegot considerably gentler as few points other than the Southwestbasins fell more than a nickel, and many declines were milder thanthat. In fact, Northern Natural’s demarc and Ventura points sawsmall upticks due to freezing temperatures in parts of the pipe’smarket area, and Chicago citygates also rose, probably fromforecasts of the Upper Plains chill moving eastward.

A couple of sources suggested that flat Michigan citygates didnot match the Chicago move higher because the Wolverine State hasso much more available storage capacity that is on the verge ofbeing topped off.

Although few cash points achieved net gains while the screen wassoaring by just over 14 cents, it was the futures strength thatkept Friday’s losses minimal, several traders agreed. And althoughan Appalachia/Northeast marketer reported an up-down-up-downmovement in his deals, for most the price trend followed futures:”low early, high late, just like the screen,” a western marketerput it.

Another Northeast trader reported that TCO/Henry Hub and TranscoZone 6-NYC/Henry Hub cash spreads for the rest of October gotstronger. TCO moved from 13 over the Hub to 14.5-15, he said, whileZone 6 went from plus 24 to plus 28.

Outside the Southwest, western softness was fairly mild due to amarket being driven by both extremes of weather, an aggegator said.Residual heat in California, combined with nuclear outages andseveral hydropower units going down, keeps customers ramping uptheir gas load for power generation, he said. Meanwhile, cooltemperatures in the Midcontinent and downright cold conditionsmoving into the Rockies was resulting in increased heating load.

It was looking more and more certain that Hurricane Irene wouldhave no gas impact. It was over southern Florida as of 5 p.m. EDTand continuing on a north-northeast track, the National WeatherService said. Barring a radical change of direction, that will takeIrene out into the Atlantic without ever having approached easternGulf of Mexico production. (NWS should have had a good view, sinceits advisories are issued from the Miami office.)

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