At least temporarily, the slide in May swing prices came to an end for much of the cash market Thursday. Rockies/San Juan/Pacific Northwest and non-Malin California numbers remained on the downhill path, but eastern and Southwest basin prices generally ranged from flat to a dime or so higher. Most eastern points, though, were only barely above flat.

A healthy screen uptick of nearly 15 cents was the primary influence for the market leveling off, sources said. Several cash traders were mystified by the futures reversal a day after what was considered another bearish storage injection report, but agreed that it would likely generate a modest rally in weekend prices today.

Don’t expect that the market has finally bottomed out, though, warned a Houston trader. Any new increases today are almost certain to be small because of the usual dropoff in weekend demand, he said, adding that weak fundamentals are largely unchanged and the overall downtrend should resume next week.

Intra-Alberta numbers tended to rise with the screen but only achieved a small gain on the day after starting from a weaker position, a marketer said.

For lovers of price volatility, Northern California was the place to trade as the state’s power woes finally subsided along with the approaching end of an unseasonal heat wave. Malin numbers, which had previously been tanking, recorded Thursday’s biggest advance of well over a dollar after dual constraints on PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest at Kingsgate and Station 14 (see Transportation Notes) combined to keep about 150 MMcf/d from making it to California, a trader said. Meanwhile, PG&E citygates started the morning as high as $8.10 but went into a steep dive to below $5.00 in some quotes as soon as the utility announced a customer-specific OFO to guard against excessive linepack. Border-PG&E numbers, while not quite as volatile, also fell nearly $2 on average.

It made for a wild, roller-coaster style ride as the plunging citygate fell below Malin in later deals, one marketer said. Hopefully things will have settled down for the weekend as the Station 14 constraint was scheduled to be only a one-day affair, he said.

A western trader said Sumas fell nearly 30 cents over the course of the morning after starting in the $4.00s. There’s plenty of supply at Sumas as all the Westcoast plants are flowing freely, he said. Although Northwest has threatened an OFO to prevent it, traders of domestic gas will continue to jam the Kemmerer (WY) Station bottleneck with northbound volumes until OFO penalties are great enough to outweigh the economic advantage, he said. As of Thursday Sumas gas still commanded a premium of more than 50 cents over domestic supplies.

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