Unlike the East-West divergence in price movement thatcharacterized the first two trading days of the week, all marketswere on the same page Wednesday. Price increases ranged from abouta nickel to 20 cents, with most of them in the vicinity of a dime.

The trend is expected to remain geographically consistent againtoday, but in a downward direction. After staying flat to mildlysofter during the morning cash trading period, the screen took adive in the afternoon after AGA said 29 Bcf had been injected intostorage last week. Futures eventually settled slightly more than 21cents down.

Although several sources said they had expected a higher AGAnumber, they figured that previous speculation about much lowerinjection figures (some going as low as single digits) had alreadybeen factored into market psychology, thus causing Nymex to treatthe actual 29 Bcf report as bearish. Also, next week’s report isexpected to return to a significantly high volume because of thegeneral lack of cold or hot temperatures this week.

With cash prices still above October index levels and mildweather continuing to prevail in virtually all regions, it’s acinch that cash will be following Wednesday afternoon’s screenlower today, a Texas marketer said. A Northeast utility buyerconcurred with that prediction. “We’re getting a little furnace useat night here,” he said, “but hardly any during the day.”

Most traders reported nothing happening yet in the way ofNovember business. However, a Calgary source said intra-Albertanumbers for next month ranged from C$6.87 to C$7.22 Wednesday,attributing the volatility to the futures plunge. Those quotescompare to an October index of C$6.75.

Winter basis got a little stronger after the screen fell so far,a marketer said. November-March basis for San Juan Basin had beenminus 27-28 Wednesday morning, he said, but was up to minus 27-26in the afternoon.

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