Prices fell by amounts ranging from about a nickel to 20 cents in Friday’s trading. Most eastern declines were a dime or less, while drops in the teens tended to be concentrated in the West. The softening brought numbers at many eastern points back to the vicinity of first-of-month indexes; western prices, which never got back near indexes during last week’s moderate firmness Tuesday through Thursday, just fell further behind.

The weekend retreat was hardly a surprise to cash traders; what was surprising is that it hadn’t happened earlier. The weak fundamentals that had characterized the entire holiday-abbreviated week were little changed as of Friday. “I guess the market finally had to face up to reality, because its earlier strength apparently was based on little more than smoke and mirrors,” one source commented. Another said he had expected even greater price weakness considering that demand goes down quite a bit over a weekend.

Erin regained the status of tropical storm again Friday afternoon as it was about 600 miles southeast of Bermuda, the National Weather Service said. It was expected to keep moving slowly toward the northwest over the weekend, which would keep it well away from the Gulf of Mexico.

Meanwhile, there was new activity in the eastern Atlantic to engage the attention of traders late that afternoon. Tropical Depression Seven was about 415 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands and headed west, NWS said. It had potential for becoming Tropical Storm Felix by Sunday.

The western tandem of border-SoCalGas and San Juan Basin recorded Friday’s largest downturns of 18-20 cents. Some people pushed the border lower in anticipation of a weekend OFO, a marketer said, but SoCalGas did not issue an Overnominations Day notice for Saturday. Traders still had to remain wary of one for Sunday, though, he added. A SoCalGas spokeswoman said injections into the utility’s storage facilities were “very strong” and that inventories were well above its five-year average.

Several traders remarked about how much quieter the market had gotten. A Gulf Coast marketer said activity is likely to stay somewhat featureless for the next few weeks with a mostly softening trend unless a hurricane comes along or there is a radical break in temperatures one way or the other.

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