Prices continued to fall Thursday but generally by smalleramounts than earlier this week. Price movement mostly ranged fromflat to down about a dime. California continued to be the oddmarket out with substantial upticks in Northern California and aSouthern California border decline of about a quarter, exceedingall other softness.

Between generally benign weather, a somewhat bearish storagereport and a screen that barely budged, “this market is dead,” saida trader in Texas. Actually it’s seemed dead all month long, hecontinued. He attributed the current doldrums partly to manytraders taking spring break-related family vacations and othersmaking preparations for trade fairs and conferences. It could get alittle colder next week, the trader said, but “a little colder”doesn’t mean much right now when spring has practically arrived.

Sumas continued to maintain a premium of 20 cents or more overNorthwest-domestic prices. That’s chiefly because of continuingconstraints on northbound gas through the pipeline’s Kemmerer (WY)Station, according to a Rockies producer. Not enough gas can getthrough to satisfy demand on the northern part of the system, hesaid, adding, “There’s just not any equilibrium right now.” A noteon the pipe’s bulletin board Thursday read, “With Kemmerer flowsnorthbound remaining high, Northwest Pipeline reserves the right toreimpose realignment and must flow OFOs upon 24 hour notice.”

“You gotta love it,” said one California trader of a furtherslight border decline. With the border falling and PG&Ecitygates rising, citygate quotes topped border prices for thefirst time since end-of-January trading for Feb. 1 flow, when thecitygate average of $14.32 was 60 cents above the border. Otherwiseduring all of 2001 so far, the border has ranged from barely aboveto tens of dollars above the citygate.

Malin and the PG&E citygate were the only rising points inan overall softer market. PG&E linepack has been hoveringaround minimum target levels for some time now, so traders wereconcerned about a potential low-linepack OFO by the utility, amarketer explained. Much of Thursday’s trading had been completedat significantly higher prices before it became known that no OFOwould be issued, he said. PG&E returned to withdrawing fromstorage Thursday after making some injections in the last week anda half, he added.

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