Amounts

In a race to produce increasing amounts of natural gas to keep up with the nation’s growing demand, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. reported Tuesday that it is continuing its work to find and produce new gas reserves from oil fields. The company announced its Fife Unit #2 well in Central Texas, which just came online, is producing natural gas at a rate of 51 MMcf/d.

Prices continued to fall Thursday but generally by smalleramounts than earlier this week. Price movement mostly ranged fromflat to down about a dime. California continued to be the oddmarket out with substantial upticks in Northern California and aSouthern California border decline of about a quarter, exceedingall other softness.

More than one trader was surprised Friday when prices rallied byvarious amounts at most points. With more OFOs disappearing (see Transportation Notes), milder weatheralmost everywhere and the typical weekend drop in demand, it seemedreasonable to expect further softness, they thought. Instead, themajority of markets ranged from flat to about a half dollar higher.

Prices continued to soar Tuesday but generally by smalleramounts than on Monday in the Gulf Coast, Midcontinent/Midwest,Appalachia and Southwest/Rockies. However, bigger gains at thefrigid Northeast citygates allowed them to join California and thePacific Northwest in measuring average pricing in four digits.

Prices continued to fall Tuesday, although by lesser amountsthan on Monday in most cases. The majority of Tuesday’s dropsranged from about a nickel to a little more than a dime, withisolated points such as the PG&E and Algonquin citygatesfalling by slightly more than 15 cents.

Cash quotes again moved higher Monday but mostly in smallamounts of less than a nickel, reacting to new strength in the gas,crude oil and heating oil futures contracts and getting some extrasupport from colder weather in major northern market areas.

Swing trading for the last day of November saw prices rising bydouble-digit amounts at nearly every point Monday except in theRockies. The fact that post-holiday temperatures had grownconsiderably colder in the East were a partial factor in theincreases; however, sources said it were the avoidance of payingeven higher November cash-out prices to the pipelines that wasprimarily behind the incremental push higher.

Effective gas day today, NGPL may be able to schedule limitedamounts of interruptible gas received in the Permian Zone inSegments 7, 8 or 9 and being delivered outside the Permian Zone.

A combination of copious amounts of gas both in the pipe andground, and very little weather demand had the stage set perfectlyfor the futures market to trend lower Monday. But despite all theominous fundamental news and bearish sentiment, few traders wereprepared for the price erosion that occurred in early tradingyesterday. The January contract gapped dramatically lower on theopen and quickly set a $1.97 low in the first half hour of trading.That left the spot month to trade sideways for the rest of the daybefore settling at $1.976. In doing so, the January contractcrushed its previous life-of-contract low of $2.085.