The cash market was a mix of ups and downs as far as priceaverages went Thursday, but sources agreed that the overall trendwas downward as trading proceeded through the morning. Flat quotesdominated again at many points, while sizeable gains and losseswere scattered.

It was “down, down, down all the way” for Gulf Coast numbers,said one trader. Screen weakness obviously had some influence, hesaid, but even more significant was the fact that Hurricane Keithwas looking more and more like “just another near-miss” for Gulf ofMexico production. Even an advancing cold front expected to bringlow temperatures in the 30s as far south as Houston this weekendfailed to provide much support for Gulf Coast pricing, heconcluded.

However, many sources are looking for higher weekend pricestoday due to widespread cold weather that will resemble a previewof winter for some areas. It was already getting chilly enough inthe Northeast for that region to register some of Thursday’s largerprice increases.

Keith made landfall early Thursday afternoon just north ofTampico, Mexico, and began to weaken as it moved inland. A tropicalstorm watch was issued for the Texas coast as far north as PortMansfield, far short of any significant gas production, and eventhat watch was discontinued toward mid-afternoon.

What had been a subtropical depression causing flooding inFlorida developed into Tropical Storm Leslie, the National WeatherService said, but it was moving away from the U.S. coast towardBermuda.

Malin saw the day’s biggest jump of about 30 cents due tomaintenance on the TransCanada-British Columbia system (formerlyAlberta Natural Gas) limiting Kingsgate deliveries into PG&EGas Transmission-Northwest, a Calgary source said. The work, whichbegan Thursday and will run through Tuesday, is cutting firmcapacity at the Alberta/BC border by about 12% Thursday and today,she said, and by about 7% Saturday through Tuesday. However, Malinquotes eventually succumbed to high linepack levels on the PacificGas & Electric system and fell back considerably, even thoughthe utility did not extend a customer-specific OFO, the marketeradded.

The constraints also resulted in rising prices at PacificNorthwest points where Canadian gas is traded (Stanfield, Sumas andKingsgate), but the backup of supplies in Alberta had numbersfalling there. And Rockies/San Juan prices, which had beenincreasing amid general flatness earlier in the week, experiencedthe day’s largest losses. The opposing trend for Northwest pointscaused Sumas to trade at a premium of about a quarter abovedomestic gas.

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