Areas

With last week’s heat menace dissipating in key market areas and the generally lower demand of a weekend coming up, no one got caught by surprise when prices softened Friday by mostly double-digit amounts. A majority of declines were between a dime and 20 cents, with larger ones concentrated in California and a few Northeast citygates.

The tropical storm threat was fading, but hotter weather was returning in many areas, prompting mild firmness in the cash market Monday. Most points ranged from flat to as much as about 30 cents higher in the case of Transco Zone 6-NYC, but there were a few small downturns thrown into the mix.

Temporary compression upgrades on parts of the SouthernCalifornia Gas Co. pipeline infrastructure along with using cushiongas from its idle Montebello underground storage field may be thelast and best hope of avoiding a meltdown in California’s naturalgas transmission pipeline infrastructure this summer under theweight of heavy demand from electric generators, a state energyexpert told California legislators Wednesday.

Northern Natural Gas continued a System Overrun Limitation forall market areas that had begun Tuesday through at least today.

Northern Natural Gas did not extend a System Overrun Limitationfor all market areas beyond Friday.

Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles’ State of the State address last week centered on what could become the legacy of his administration: an 1,800-mile natural gas pipeline to transport the state’s 36 Tcf to the marketplace. With energy prices and energy consumption bursting at the seams, Knowles is dedicating the remainder of his term, which expires in 2003, to the gas project.

Although it was getting chillier Friday in major northern marketareas, traders agreed the weather wasn’t severe enough to justifyfurther strong jumps in cash prices. Rather, they said, it wascontinued muscle-flexing by the screen along with a fresh spurt ofbuying for storage that produced price gains ranging from about adime to a quarter at all but a few points.

Weekend cash prices hit a plateau Friday in theMidcontinent/Midwest, Gulf Coast and Appalachia, but softened inthe Northeast and at most western points.

Thanks to impending colder weather in the major northern marketareas along with some extra boost from a rising screen, overallcash prices ranged from flat to about a nickel higher Thursday,with increases of 3-6 cents tending to occur most frequently.