The swing market somewhat resembled a popular breakfast foodWednesday: almost as flat as could be, with a slight lean towardthe softer side.

While many people were quick to attribute cash strength to arising screen earlier in the week, there didn’t seem to be muchcash/futures correlation Wednesday, a marketer said. Weatherfundamentals are still weak, he added, but end-of-month balancingand storage plays likely helped keep prices from fallingsignificantly.

Chicago citygates started flat at $2.98 and fell throughout themorning, said a marketer who admitted being a featured buyer on theway down. “I was buying March cash and selling forward futures,”she said.

AGA’s afternoon report of 43 Bcf withdrawn from storage waspretty healthy, an aggregator said, “considering the screen wassaying last week, ‘Keep that gas in the ground, don’t take itout.'” But another trader commented, “I guess it [report] must havebeen bearish since the screen kept dropping after it came out.”

Swing activity was understandably diminishing as tradersconcentrated more attention on bidweek. Physical April prices wereslipping a few cents in response to the screen softness, and basiskept weakening even after the April contract had settled, aMidcontinent marketer said.

One trader perceived western prices as coming off a little butnot as much as in the Gulf Coast. He thought a relative lack ofliquidity kept the West’s softening to a minimum.

A couple of sources reported that formerly index-premium dealswere starting to become index-flat or index-minus. Sonat beganbidweek at index plus 1 but had fallen to flat Wednesday, one said.The other said her company was buying gas flat or negative to indexon a couple of Rockies pipes after having made some index-pluspurchases earlier in the week.

An aggregator who characterized herself as being long onphysical gas for April in the Gulf Coast complained, “It’s notpretty. Everyone wants to buy [in the] market area and no one wantsto buy [in the] production area. The spreads don’t cover thevariable cost of transport. It just doesn’t make sense.”

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