In a reflection of Wednesday afternoon’s meager storagewithdrawal report and the accompanying screen downturn, most cashpoints fell between about a dime and 20 cents Thursday. The majorvariations from the overall market were Northern Californiaupticks, flat to barely lower numbers in the Rockies and San JuanBasin, and a Southern California border decline of nearly 40 cents.

A late-season Nor’easter was dumping snow into inland areas ofthe Northeast, and an arctic cold front had moved into the sparselypopulated Upper Plains, yet traders still weren’t seeing enoughweather-related demand to prevent sagging prices, sources said.Thus the market looked to the previous day’s AGA report of only 23Bcf in storage withdrawals in the previous week and a Nymex drop ofnearly a quarter for direction, and that direction was down.

There was a late rebound, however, as the screen moved intohigher territory, according to a Gulf Coast trader. He had boughtMRT mainline gas in the low $5.00s early on, but was getting offersat $5.15 near deadline.

Although intra-Alberta numbers were lower on the day, they alsosaw a moderate rally, a Calgary marketer said. Provincial pricesfollowed the screen higher in the afternoon and got a bit of extraboost from area snowfall, he said. “It’s actually trying to getcolder here again,” he exclaimed.

Northern and Southern California markets reversed their movementon the price ladder from earlier in the week. Malin registered asmall increase and the PG&E citygate a much bigger one as theutility ended a systemwide high-linepack OFO. Meanwhile the border,which had been soaring through Wednesday while its NorthernCalifornia counterparts fell, recorded Thursday’s biggest pricedrop. A cessation of the state’s power crisis (Cal-ISO found itunnecessary to issue even a Stage One alert) dampened electricgeneration demand at the border, a producer said.

A large aggregator reported getting calls for Rockies gas frombuyers that had been noticeably absent from his phone linepreviously. Yesterday’s Rockies firmness relative to the generalmarket was related to Kern River’s postponement of maintenance,which had been scheduled to last through today, until next month,he said. The Opal Plant also postponed maintenance planned inconjunction with the Kern River work, he added. The trouble was,according to the aggregator, gathering systems that correlate theirown maintenance shut-ins in anticipation of no gas flows don’talways adjust readily to such postponements and sometimes keepsupplies off the market for a while despite no constraints.

A Kern River spokeswoman said maintenance delay was due todeployment of emergency compression along the system in an effortto raise throughput to California quickly.

A Rockies trader quoted April deals on either side of $4.60 atKern River-Opal, noting that equated to approximate basis of minusmid to low $0.50s.

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