Prices fell Thursday in the wake of a large storage injection report and a continuing dearth of air conditioning load. Volumes and trading activity remained minimal in the absence of futures guidance, and sources reported that the feelings of grief and numbness from the attacks against New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon were slow in dissipating.

Most points ranged from essentially flat to down about a dime. Those exceeding a dime tended to be concentrated in the Rockies, Midcontinent/Midwest, Malin and some Northeast citygates. A cold front was moving through the Northeast, and a similar cooling trend was being experienced in the Midwest.

What might have been a price booster, Tropical Storm Gabrielle, remained in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and was thought likely to become a hurricane by Saturday. However, it was moving northeastward away from the production area and considered primarily a threat to the Florida peninsula. Tropical storm warnings were posted for the state’s western coast. At 5 p.m. EDT Thursday the center of Gabrielle was 165 miles west-southwest of Naples, FL.

Felix became the second major hurricane of this season but was out in the open Atlantic about 1,410 miles southwest of Lajes in the Azores. Its threat to the U.S. was minimal as of yesterday.

The market has entered a state of lassitude that is likely to continue for a while longer, a couple of traders said. For now virtually everyone is doing only what has to be done for balancing concerns or covering essential positions, then getting out of the market quickly, one said. “I don’t expect anything even approaching normal until next week, and maybe not even then.”

A western marketer noted that border-SoCalGas had regained a premium of a little more than a nickel over the PG&E citygate after the two points had begun the week with the positions reversed. That must mean the processing of agricultural harvests in North and Central California must be close to finishing, an event that had been predicted several weeks earlier, he said.

Some traders were starting to discuss the consequences if the U.S. goes to war in retaliation for Tuesday’s terrorist attacks. They tended to agree that oil markets would feel a more direct impact than natural gas, but the prices of all energy would be likely to rise. However, a marketer said it was rather surprising to see such nations as Iran and Libya, known as unfriendly to the U.S., expressing some form of support in the current crisis.

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