Cash prices continued to soften as expected Friday, but except for still-plunging Northeast citygates it was hardly the market “collapse” that more than one source had thought possible the day before. Outside the Northeast, nearly all the declines were between about a dime and 15 cents.

A couple of Rockies points fell by less than a dime, as snow continued in that region after departing most other areas. The Rockies snow was due to cease Friday night, according to The Weather Channel’s web site, but a weak system was expected to move through the Pacific Northwest Saturday and bring more snow from the Cascades to the northern Rockies.

Northeast numbers might have been considered as collapsing when one looks at dives of more than a dollar at the two Transco Zone 6 pools and 40-65 cents or so at other area citygates. However, the breadth of their price drops was something of an illusion, because those points had been pushed so much higher than other markets on New Year’s Eve, a marketer commented.

A generally flat screen helped keep the weekend price weakness moderate despite the fact that the South was starting to thaw out and warmer weather also was returning to the Midwest and Northeast. And one trader speculated that with the heating season’s first triple-digit storage withdrawal recorded (meaning that some space was starting to open up in storage facilities), there might have been some people starting to inject again with the hope of keeping it until next winter and profiting from higher prices then.

Traders in several markets reported a modest rising trend as activity proceeded Friday morning. Chicago citygates began in the mid $2.20s and eventually got about a dime higher, before retreating to the $2.30 area near deadline, a marketer said. And a buyer who paid from the mid $2.40s to the low $2.50s in FGT’s Zones 2 and 3 for full-weekend flows, also reported three Monday-only deals in the low $2.60s. The Monday premium was caused by forecasts that the Florida market area will be getting even colder then, the buyer said. FGT citygates were among the rare points that barely went down at all Friday.

But there was no denying that the fundamental outlook for prices remains bearish. A Midcontinent producer reported that several customers had started returning swing gas that they didn’t need after the holiday last week. And an intrastate Texas trader said his prices usually tend to see at least a small rally coming out of a weekend, but he doubts there will be one today because the state will be considerably warmer than it was late last week.

“Prices didn’t flat-out die today, but they did get softer,” commented a Midwest citygate marketer. “They will definitely be giving up more ground [this] week when even warmer weather comes along.”

Another trader was growling even louder as a bear, saying, “I’m betting we get under two bucks by the end of [this] week in both cash and futures.” He doesn’t see a very big withdrawal figure coming from AGA Wednesday and thinks the market will enter the injection season with 2 Tcf still in storage. “The story for 2001 was no weather, and it’s starting to look the same for 2002,” he concluded.

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