Incremental prices closed out the month of January once againdefying bearish demand factors. In deals done Friday, most averagesvaried little from their Thursday positions. And though traderswere separating weekend business into Saturday/Sunday andMonday-only deals due to the shift from January to February, theyreported little appreciable difference in pricing between the twotime periods.

As expected, Sumas prices beat a large and hasty retreat of morethan a dollar from their near-$3 levels of Thursday as Westcoastannounced plans for full operational volumes again at the McMahonPlant by Saturday’s gas day (see Transportation Notes). Stanfieldnumbers fell more than 30 cents in response to McMahon’s return toservice.

One source said he had heard reports of Westcoast Station 2going as high as C$6 Thursday, while McMahon was still down, intrading that was “all over the place.” But a marketer found suchstratospheric levels hard to believe, saying, “There was no reasonfor anybody to pay nearly that much” when he knew of Station 2deals being struck in the C$2.40s that day.

A marketer reported a fair amount of Clay Basin storage in theRockies entering the market, saying some buyers think current cashprices there represent good value compared with March or Aprilfutures minus a basis number.

Bidweek wound up quietly with most last-day price movement beingslightly to the downside in sympathy with the screen’s weakness.However, a marketer said Katy prices for February tended to “fallhard.”

Friday was not a good vantage point for predicting theaftermarket, a producer said, since the first February incrementaldeals won’t be done until today. But he thought Friday’s screenslump pointed toward softening, which seemed to be the consensusopinion. But a big aggregator saw a chance of Western marketsstanding their ground, saying the latest forecasts called for coldin the west and relatively warm in the rest of the country.

A Midcontinent producer didn’t care for the initial Februaryoutlook, saying a number of Midwestern LDCs were electing not totake discretionary gas for the first few days, “and that is reallya good indication of what the demand will look like.”

One trader came up with a fresh reason for anticipating a weakaftermarket: “Lately it has been the case that the aftermarket doesthe opposite of what it did the month before. So since prices weregenerally above indexes [during January], they might very well bebelow indexes in February.”

©Copyright 1999 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.