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Prices Go Into Weekend Flat to Up About a Nickel
Cash numbers finished the week slightly higher as various pointsranged from flat to 5-6 cents higher Friday. It was difficult togeneralize with several regions containing both flat andnickel-higher points. The larger gains were seen at Henry Hub, TGTZone 1, Tennessee Zone 0, Columbia-Appalachia, Texas Eastern M-3and the Chicago citygate.
A rupture of Oasis near La Grange, TX, (see TransportationNotes) had negligible impact on prices. About 400 MMcf/d wasflowing through the affected area, and presumably that volume waseliminated temporarily from the Katy market where Oasis has itseastern terminus. But Katy quotes were up only about 2-3 cents intothe low $2.20s, comparable to other Gulf Coast points. Although onebuyer said he understood people who depend on Oasis supplies atKaty had to scramble for replacement gas, another source said thefact that the outage was expected to be short-lived canceled anyperceivable effect on prices. His company rerouted “a bunch of gas”rather than having to deal with it later, he said.
Prices at Waha, the western terminus of Oasis, got a small boostas Texas utilities stepped into the market after temperatures inthe state got colder than expected.
A producer making Columbia-Appalachia sales around $2.40 saidlate in the morning he had “people calling me [instead of himcalling them], and that tells me there was some tightness ofsupply.”
A marketer was surprised when intra-Alberta prices got into theC$1.80s. Drafting on NOVA was putting system linepack below targetlevels, he said, “but that really doesn’t make much sense due tocurtailments on gas headed to [eastern Canada] markets Niagara andParkway. That should be backing up gas into the province, but itisn’t.”
Although “the warm-up is coming,” a marketer said, Rockiesprices held true to form-“They didn’t budge!”
Negative April basis was getting still wider as the screencontinued its surge, a producer said. He was doing San Juan-Blancofixed-price deals at $2.07-08 when the Henry Hub was at $2.32,indicating basis of minus 24-25. That was about a penny lower thanBlanco basis reported Thursday.
A trader who was relatively idle Friday called it “the calmbefore the bidweek storm.”
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