Most cash points tended to ignore Thursday’s rebound on thefutures screen and instead focused on weak fundamentals. Many GulfCoast and Midcontinent pipes were leveling off from Wednesday’sprecipitous plunges, although several in the Gulf fell a few morecents. The losers included points in South and East Texas despite aferocious heat wave straining the state’s electric utilities.

The biggest declines occurred at opposite corners of the nationas Northeast citygates and deliveries to California dropped up to adime. The Northeast was already enjoying mild weather, and althoughCalifornia remained hot Thursday, it was expected to see its owncooling-off period this weekend. By contrast, Chicago citygatesgained about a penny and Michigan citygates slightly more thanthat.

A Northeast-oriented marketer described Thursday’s market as”chaotic” and still recovering from the Hurricane Earl-relatedsupply confusion. “A lot of people are not sure what gas they didor didn’t get on the 2nd and 3rd,” she said.

Although Permian Basin quotes were down over a nickel, theyrecovered 3-4 cents in penny increments as trading proceeded, amarketer said.

Intra-Alberta was a rare point in bucking the general bearishtrend, rising about C20 cents into the high C$1.90s. Hot ambienttemperatures have been taking their toll on compressor efficienciesin the province and reducing field receipts, a Calgary trader said.Also, people are trying to catch up on storage, she added; Aeco Cis one of the continent’s few storage facilities that isn’t full orgetting close to it.

It’s hard to expect anything other than more falling pricestoday, one source said. Not only is there the usual demand slump ofa long holiday weekend, but many of the major market areas eitherhave already cooled off or will be doing so, he said. In addition,there will be few if any hurricane-related supply outages stillremaining in the Gulf Coast.

Hurricane Earl may have been on his way out, but a tropical wavedescribed as “strong” was moving westward from the Lesser Antilles.It had the potential to strengthen into a tropical depression.

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