The third time was not the charm. After avoiding the usualsoftness associated with lower weekend demand for two weeks in arow, prices finally bowed to the inevitable Friday and dropped bysmall amounts of a nickel or less nearly across the board.

The downturn was most pronounced at western points, stillplagued by California OFOs, and weakest at still-cold Northeastcitygates; Transco’s Zone 6-NYC pool even saw one of the day’s raresizeable gains.

Cash gas numbers may have taken a small cue from falling energyfutures, but it was mainly the realization that cold weather in themajor northern market areas was unlikely to survive the weekendpushing prices lower, sources said.

A cold snap in the Northeast was expected to last through theweekend, then yield to a warming trend, an aggregator said. Forthat reason he thinks prices will keep falling today, at least inthat region. He said Iroquois Zone 2 deliveries in the New YorkCity area were about 20 cents cheaper than Transco Zone 6-NYCbecause of considerably tighter market-area supplies on Transco.

Warmer weather was due even sooner for the Midcontinent/Midwest,according to a marketer. “There’ll be one more cold day [Saturday],then it will be getting warmer from Sunday on,” he said. Eventrading fairly large volumes at several Midcontinent points, he sawalmost no ranges exceeding 3 cents Friday.

California and other western prices continued to suffer from anexcess of supply. Although PG&E ended a three-dayhigh-inventory OFO effective Saturday, SoCal Gas replaced it with asimilar Overnominations Day declaration. A marketer said hewouldn’t be surprised to see PG&E reinstate its OFO on Sunday.Friday’s biggest declines of about a dime occurred in San JuanBasin and at the California border.

It must have seemed like more of a TGIF than usual with HoustonEnergy Expo taking up much of the week for many traders. A marketersaid early-afternoon departures from trading offices appeared to bemuch more rampant than usual.

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