After prices nose-dived during September’s first three days oftrading, a number of traders thought they would never get back toindex levels during the month. Then after steady increases in theweek after Labor Day put quite a few points around or near indexesagain, there were those who said prices were likely to weaken butcertainly wouldn’t plunge to those early-September depths again.

Guess what? Another attack of softness Friday had many pointsagain trading in the vicinity of or barely higher than where theyhad been two weeks earlier. However, except for some double-digitdrops in the West, the general price weakening actually was quitemild for a lower-demand, moderate-weather weekend period. MostMidcontinent/Midwest and Gulf Coast points were flat to less than anickel lower. Sources credited a screen increase of a little over 6cents with keeping most of the eastern declines small.

Southern California Gas had an Overnominations Day(high-linepack OFO) in effect for Saturday, but northern neighborPacific Gas & Electric did not, saying it expected targetinventories through today. The SoCal OFO helped explain the West’soverall softness and also why Southern California border quotesfell more than 15 cents while PG&E citygates were down lessthan a dime. The border traded in the $2.50s early on, one sourcesaid, but fell to either side of $2.40 after the OFO was postedaround 9:20 a.m. CDT.

Zones 1 and 2 of Florida Gas Transmission were among the Gulf’sflat points, getting support from the pipeline’s advisory that itwas monitoring conditions for the potential need for a low-linepackOFO in the market area.

A producer was having trouble finding any Chicago market, saying”there just seems to be way too much gas available.” If he had moresupply length, the producer added, “I would be pushing it [sales]harder and accepting lower prices,” but he decided that wasn’tnecessary Friday. A marketer said Chicago citygates started loweraround $2.53 but ran up near the end to the low $2.60s, resultingin a flat citygate average. He attributed the late rise to futuresstrength and “some storage demand” emerging.

A marketer blamed former Hurricane Floyd for pushing downNortheast demand to “absolutely zero” for the weekend. And aboutthe only Gulf Coast demand he saw was from people putting gas intostorage. A Northeast buyer tended to confirm the marketer’s firstassertion, saying he was buying a Texas Eastern M-3 package fortoday only and increasing a Transco Zone 6-NYC purchase from asmall weekend volume to about 25 MMcf/d for today only.

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