Just as Wednesday was an unusual day in having East and Westmarkets rising in tandem, the two regions joined again Friday inmoving in the same direction-only this time the direction was down,way down. Decreases of less than a dime were few, and San JuanBasin plumbed depths not seen in a long time by falling a quarterto the $1.50 area. The Permian Basin and Waha plunged by 20 centsor more.

Even intra-Alberta, which had been credited with providing muchof the West’s underpinning price strength last week until Friday,succumbed to the overall weakness by falling nearly C20 cents intothe C$2.50s. However, a Calgary marketer who saw numbers fall aslow C$2.46 said there was a slight rebound in the afternoon back toC$2.54.

Prices started about a nickel down right off the bat and thenwent further south from there, a Texas producer said. It was an”interesting morning” trying to place all supplies, he added.

Gulf Coast traders, especially on pipes going to the East,dreaded the probability of weekend OFOs after several pipes hadbeen warning during the week of excess linepack and little storageinjection flexibility. Surprisingly enough, no Gulf OFOs were ineffect as of late Friday afternoon, although they could beimplemented over the weekend. Williams in the Midcontinent had theonly active pipeline OFO against banking on the system Friday.

A Midcontinent trader was surprised to see field prices slippingby a dime or more, but Midwest citygate drops were only down byeither side of a nickel.

The Southern California border was one of the more hypervolatilepoints. After beginning trading less than a dime down in the upper$2.10s, it had plunged into the $1.90s (less than the $2.03 Octoberindex) in last-minute activity. That was because SoCal Gas declaredan Overnomination Day (similar to a high-linepack OFO) forSaturday, which meant some nominated gas was not going to flowafter all, a marketer said.

“We were transporting San Juan gas into Northwest” because ofthe approximate 20-cent differential between the two points, amarketer said. Even with generally larger drops in the Rockies,Kern River and Northwest still commanded a dime premium to most ofthe Gulf Coast.

One Pacific Northwest trader confidently predicted prices wouldbe on the rise again today. A Texas marketer agreed somewhat buthedged his forecast. Mild weather will be moving into Texas, but itwas snowing in the Rockies, he said. For that reason he saw achance for a rebound this week, “but not much.”

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